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HOLLIS  STREET  CHURCH 


FROM 


MATHER  BYLES  to  THOMAS  STARR  KING. 

1732— \%\. 


\ 


fall 


I    I    J 


im- 


Two  Discourses,  by  George  Leonard  Chanev 

1877. 


HOLLIS  STREET  CHURCH 


FROM 


MATHER  BYLES  to  THOMAS  STARR  KING. 


1732  — 1861. 


TWO  DISCOURSES    ^ 

GIVEN    IN    HOLLIS    STREET    MEETING-HOUSE, 
DEC.  31,  1876,  and  JAN.  7,  1877, 

By   GEORGE   LEONARD    CHANEY. 


BOSTON: 
PRESS    OF   GEORGE    H.   ELLIS. 

1877. 


BOSTON  COLLEGE  UW*A*T» 
CHESTNUT  NfUr  MASS. 


4010 


...    .      v.         ^     ^ 


1>~&5*» 


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a  "U  U 


THE  NF\ST    HOLLIS  ST  JVIEET1NG  HOUSE 

And    its    n«ifehbourhood .    

DRAWfJ    BY    DR.J.BtLKfJAP,  I  r4     l^gj  .    


DISCOURSE. 

John  iv.,  24. 
"  God  is  a  Spirit :  and  they  that  worship  him  must  worship  him  in  spirit  and  in  truth." 

The  first  sermon  preached  in  the  Hollis  Street 
Meeting-house,  June  18,  1732,  was  from  this  text.  Dr. 
Sewall  of  the  Old  South  Church  was  the  preacher.  It 
was  he  who  "  more  immediately  formed"  or  organized 
the  church  here.  He  wrote  its  covenant,  dedicated  its 
house  of  worship  with  prayer,  gave  the  charge  to  its 
first  pastor,  and  laid  the  hand  of  ordination  upon  his 
head.  This  first  pastor  was  the  Rev.  Mather  Byles, 
a  gentleman  of  good  ministerial  extraction,  counting 
Richard  Mather  and  John  Cotton  among  his  ancestors ; 
of  University  training  (having  graduated  at  Harvard 
College  1725),  and  of  sincere  attachment  to  his  chosen 
calling,  and  more  than   common   fitness  for  its  duties. 

The  proof  of  these  latter  qualifications  is  in  the 
length  and  quietness  of  his  pastorate,  extending  over 
forty-four  years,  and  in  those  specimens  of  his  pro- 
fessional compositions  which  have  lived  after  him  in 
the  printed  and  written  word.  His  letter  accepting 
the  pastoral  office  in  Hollis  Street  shows  a  due  sense  of 
the  importance  of  the  task  he  is  assuming,  a  respectful 
deliberation  in  the  manner  of  forming  his  conclusion, 


a  manly  directness  in  accepting  the  call  when  his 
conclusion  is  reached,  a  modest  estimate  of  his  own 
powers,  and  a  just  and  devout  dependence  upon  the 
Divine  Aid  in  the  performance  of  his  duties.  He 
relies,  also,  upon  the  affection,  encouragement,  and 
support  to  be  expected  from  his  people.  "  Brethren, 
pray  for  me,"  he  says,  "  that  I  may  approve  myself 
upright  before  God  and  faithful  to  you.  Pray  that  I 
may  be  holy,  wise,  diligent,  and  successful ;  that  I  may 
feed  the  flock,  be  an  example  to  the  flock,  a  wise  stew- 
ard of  the  divine  mysteries,  rightly  dividing  the  Word 
of  Truth."  His  letter  to  Jeremy  Belknap,  several  years 
later,  on  the  subject  of  entering  the  ministry,  shows  his 
sincerity  and  professional  good  sense.  A  printed  ser- 
mon on  the  u  Nature  and  Necessity  of  Conversion, 
published  in  1769,"  reveals  his  doctrine  and  method 
of  preaching.  Some  of  it  would  not  find  a  place  in 
our  current  theology  to-day,  but  his  definition  and 
illustrations  of  true  conversion  are  as  fresh  and  timely 
now  as  ever.  "Some  think,"  he  says,  "that  to  be  con- 
verted is  only  to  profess  the  Christian  religion.  They 
fancy  that  to  turn  from  heathenism  to  Christianity  is  all 
that  is  implied  in  it.  If  we  speak  of  our  being  con- 
verted, they  ask,  Why,  what  were  you  before  ?  Jews, 
or  Turks,  or  Heathen  ?  Alas !  the  fatal  mistake !  .  .  . 
Conversion  does  not  consist  in  embracing  a  new  sect, 
or  party,  in  baptism,  or  approach  to  the  Lord's  table, 
or  any  external  privilege,  or  advantage,  or  alteration. 
No,  it  consists  in  turning  from  the  creature  to  God." 


5 

It  is  simple  justice  to  recall  at  this  date  some  of  the 
earnest  and  devout  sentiments  of  Dr.  Byles,  because 
secular  history  has  claimed  so  large  a  share  of  his 
biography.  To  nearly  every  reader  of  Revolutionary 
times  in  Boston  he  is  only  known  as  the  inveterate 
wit  and  obstinate  tory.  At  this  late  period  his  irre- 
pressible humor  and  ready  felicity  of  speech  make 
his  disloyalty  to  the  American  cause  almost  amusing. 
Even  amid  the  intense  feeling  of  his  own  day,  the 
sentence  of  banishment  which  was  passed  against  him 
was  never  carried  into  effect.  His  church,  however, 
was  less  tolerant  of  him  than  his  country.  It  throws 
a  shade  of  sadness  over  the  records  of  a  long  and 
harmonious  pastorate  to  review  its  history  with  a 
knowledge  of  its  unhappy  close.  But  that  is  our 
task.  The  young  minister  begins  with  his  new  church 
in  1732,  one  hundred  and  forty-four  years  ago  this  very 
month.  Jonathan  Belcher,  Captain-General  and  Gov- 
ernor-in-Chief  in  and  over  His  Majesty's  Province  of 
Massachusetts  Bay,  "had  given  the  land  unto  William 
Pain,  Esq.,  on  condition  that  he,  with  a  covenant 
number,  would  associate  themselves  together  and  build 
a  house  for  the  public  worship  of  God."  Dr.  Byles' 
first  wife  was  the  Governor's  niece.  A  year  or  two 
after  the  settlement  (April,  1734),  Thomas  Hollis,  of 
London,  presented  the  church  with  a  fine  bell  of  about 
eight  hundred  pounds  weight.  In  the  same  year  that 
the  bell  lifted  up  its  voice  in  the  steeple,  a  "  handsome 
dial  or  clock,  for  the  ornament  of  the  house  and  the 


benefit  of  the  congregation,"  was  installed  as  its  col- 
league in  the  interior  of  the  meeting-house. 

Other  gifts  from  people  to  church  are  pleasantly 
recorded.  One  of  these  is  especially  interesting  for 
its  date  of  the  time  when  the  Bible  was  first  publicly 
read  here.  On  May  2d,  1742,  the  pastor,  in  the  name 
of  the  Hon.  William  Dummer,  late  Lieutenant-Governor 
and  Commander-in-Chief  over  this  Province,  presented 
the  church  with  "  a  large  and  rich  folio  Bible,  on  con- 
dition that  it  should  be  read  as  a  part  of  the  publick 
worship  on  the  Lord's  day  among  us."  The  thanks  of 
the  church  are  voted  to  the  honorable  donor  for  his 
"  stately  church  Bible,"  and  one  week  later,  May  9, 
1742,  reading  from  the  Scriptures  is  introduced. 

Gifts  of  silver  for  the  communion-table  and  font  are 
acknowledged  from  Thomas  Hubbard,  Silence  Eliot, 
Gov.  Dummer,  Zachariah  Johonnot.  And  in  June  27, 
1762,  I  find  this  important  extract  from  the  will  of  the 
Hon.  William  Dummer  :  — 

I  give  unto  the  church  of  which  the  Rev.  Mather  Byles  is  at 
present  pastor,  £26  13s.  and  4^.,  lawful  money,  to  be  placed  out  to 
interest,  on  good  security,  by  the  deacons  of  said  church,  for  the 
time  being  forever,  said  interest  to  be  annually  paid  by  the  dea- 
cons of  said  church,  for  the  time  being,  to  the  minister  or  minis- 
ters of  the  same  church  forever.  \_Mem.  —  I  have  never  received 
any  such  interest,     g.  l.  c] 

In  the  same  book  with  these  records  of  church  doings 
are   the  lists   of    baptisms,  and   we   are  led  along  this 


primrose  path,  rewarded  now  by  some  familiar  family 
name,  and  now  by  quaint  old-fashioned  styles  with  good 
Hebrew  significance  in  them,  like  Thankful  Jepson, 
Waitstill  Trott,  Hopestill  Foster,  Faith  Bass,  and 
Patience  How.  It  warms  one's  heart  towards  this  far- 
off  predecessor  to  find,  under  date  of  Jan.  12,  1734,  the 
simple  inscription,  "  My  Mather."  The  father  got  the 
better  of  the  minister  when  he  made  that  entry,  and 
broke  the  formal  list  of  baptisms  with  the  language  of 
nature.  His  Mather  afterwards  became  an  Episcopal 
minister,  and  was  settled  for  a  time  in  Christ  Church 
in  this  city.  He  shared  his  father's  tory  convictions, 
and  after  the  evacuation  of  Boston  spent  the  remainder 
of  his  days  in  Nova  Scotia.  We  are  called  by  this 
episode  of  the  son  to  recount  the  critical  event  in  the 
ministerial  life  of  the  father. 

Dr.  Byles  was  a  consistent  tory,  and  doubtless  con- 
cealed as  much  obstinacy  of  opinion  under  his  habitual 
pleasantries  as  graver  men  possessed.  He  is  credited 
with  some  good  and  witty  reasons  for  not  introducing 
politics  into  his  discourses  from  the  pulpit :  "  In  the 
first  place,  I  do  not  understand  politics ;  in  the  second 
place,  you  all  do,  every  mother's  son  of  you ;  in  the 
third  place,  you  have  politics  all  the  week,  pray  let  one 
day  be  given  to  religion ;  and  in  the  fourth  place,  I  have 
something  better  to  preach  about." 

But,  whether  he  made  politics  a  frequent  theme  of  his 
preaching  or  not,  he  did  not  scruple  to  pledge  his  pray- 
ers to  the  enemy,  and  we  find  among  the  charges  pre- 


8 


ferred  against  him  at  a  later  day,  that  he  "pray'd  in 
publick  that  America  might  submitt  to  Grate  Brittain, 
or  words  to  the  same  purpose."  It  is  not  shown  that 
he  took  any  very  active  part  in  opposing  the  indepen- 
dence of  the  colonies,  although  his  well-known  tory  sym- 
pathies exposed  him  to  constant  suspicion.  In  the  list 
of  charges  made  against  him  by  his  church  and  congre- 
gation, on  their  return,  after  the  British  had  left  Boston, 
it  is  said  that  he  "  associated  and  spent  a  considerable 
part  of  his  time  with  the  officers  of  the  British  army, 
having  them  frequently  in  his  house,  and  lending  them 
his  glasses  for  the  purpose  of  seeing  the  works  erecting 
out  of  town  for  our  Defense."  His  daughters  openly 
boasted  that  they  had  walked  on  the  Common  during 
the  siege  with  Gen.  Howe  and  Lord  Percy,  and  were 
serenaded  by  the  royal  band.  It  is  further  declared 
that  he  treated  the  public  calamity  with  "  a  grate  degree 
of  liteness  and  Indifference,  saying  when  his  towns- 
people left  their  houses,  that  a  better  sort  of  people 
would  take  their  place,  or  words  to  that  purpose"; 
"that  he  frequently  met  on  Lord's  days,  before  and 
after  service,  with  a  number  of  our  Inveterate  Enemies, 
at  a  certain  place  in  King  Street,  called  Tory  Hall." 
Another  grievance  was  his  refusal  "  to  have  two  ser- 
vices on  Lord's  days,  while  he  preached  at  the  Old 
Brick  meeting-house,  though  urged  thereto  by  some  of 
the  ministers  then  in  town." 

He  was  summoned  to  give  answer  to  these  complaints 
at  a  meeting  held  in   the  first   Hollis  Street  Meeting- 


house,  Aug.  9,  i  Jj6,  and,  on  the  charges  being  read,  and 
the  evidence  to  support  them  produced,  he  made  "  such 
answers  as  he  tho't  proper,"  says  the  reticent  church 
record.  The  oral  traditions  which  hand  down  the 
story  suggest  a  much  more  lively  picture  of  the  reso- 
lute grief  of  the  society,  and  the  undignified  resent- 
ment of  their  minister.  Certainly  the  propriety  of  the 
defence  did  not  rest  in  its  manner,  and  if  one  may 
judge  from  the  speedy  action  of  the  church,  its  matter 
was  equally  unsatisfactory.  For,  one  week  later,  they 
voted,  that  "  the  Revd  Dr.  Mather  Byles,  having  by  his 
conduct  put  an  end  to  his  usefulness  as  a  Publick 
preacher  amongst  us,  Be  and  hereby  is,  dismissed  from 
his  Pastoral  charge." 

The  prompt  action  of  the  church  in  Hollis  Street,  in 
arraigning  its  minister  for  his  tory  sympathies  imme- 
diately on  their  return  to  town,  illustrates  very  forcibly 
the  vital  connection  which  was  felt  at  that  time  to  exist 
between  Politics  and  Religion.  Perhaps  no  livelier  illus- 
tration of  this  common  conviction  could  be  furnished 
than  is  given  in  an  incident  which  happened  just  before 
June  14,  1774.  Dr.  Byles  succeeded  in  creating  a  real 
panic  among  the  British  troops,  by  reporting  that  on 
June  14  forty  thousand  men  would  rise  up  in  opposi- 
tion to  them,  with  the  clergy  at  their  head;  the  fact 
being  that  that  day  had  been  appointed  as  a  day  of 
fasting  throughout  the  Province.  It  was  wisdom,  as 
well  as  wit,  which  looked  upon  a  peaceful  convocation 
of  fasting  worshippers  as  a  standing  army.     We  smile 


IO 

at  the  possibility  of  finding  anything  formidable  in  a 
Fast-day  congregation  ;  but  in  that  day,  in  this  Province, 
it  meant,  in  all  literalness,  an  army  of  two-score  thou- 
sand men,  headed  by  their  clergy,  and  animated  with 
the  dangerous  resolution  to  defend  their  liberties.  Un- 
faithfulness to  civil  liberty  was  regarded  by  these  patri- 
ots as  an  unpardonable  offence  against  the  church.  It 
was  on  this  ground  that  the  tie  between  pastor  and 
people  was  broken,  a  tie  which,  at  that  time,  was  as 
binding  as  that  which  wedded  man  and  wife.  For  forty- 
four  years,  from  its  beginning  in  1732  to  1776,  Dr.  Byles 
had  been  the  minister  of  Hollis  Street  Church,  and,  in 
accordance  with  the  custom  of  his  day,  he  had  been 
settled  for  life.  And  yet,  on  evidence  of  his  aiding 
and  abetting  the  British,  he  was  deposed  from  his 
office,  and  it  was  declared  that  he  had  put  an  end  to 
his  usefulness  in  this  church.  It  is  pleasant  to  find 
on  the  records,  at  a  later  date,  a  vote  of  money  for 
his  necessities.  His  friends  in  the  church  and  his 
neighbors  were  kind  to  him  as  a  man,  after  they  had 
ceased  to  respect  him  as  a  minister.  His  loss  of  office, 
and  consequent  lack  of  pecuniary  resources,  do  not 
seem  to  have  dulled  his  wit  or  permanently  depressed 
his  spirits. 

Dr.  Belknap,  in  his  letter  to  Hazard,  describes  a  visit 
to  him  just  after  the  great  fire  of  1787.  Dr.  Byles' 
house  was  in  imminent  danger.  "  His  books,  instru- 
ments, papers,  and  prints  were  dislodged  in  an  hour 
from  a  fifty  years'  quietness  to  a  helter-skelter  heap  in 


II 

an  adjoining  pasture."  The  "melancholy  satisfaction" 
afforded  him  of  seeing  the  meeting-house  which  had 
ejected  him  burned  to  the  ground  must  have  been  an 
afterthought,  for  the  prospect  of  losing  his  own  dwell- 
ing was  too  pressing  to  leave  room  for  any  satisfaction 
at  the  time.  "  The  first  thing  we  thought  of  saving," 
said  his  daughters,  "was  papa."  "Whereupon,"  writes 
Belknap,  "  the  Doctor  would  have  gone  into  a  long 
disquisition  upon  persons  and  things.  But  I  could  not 
stop  to  hear.  He  told  me  of  a  minister  who  preached 
about  the  lunatic  dispossessed  of  devils  that  entered 
into  the  swine,  and  he  made  three  heads  of  it,  which  he 
would  express  by  three  English  proverbs :  — 

"'i.  The  devil  will  play  at  small  game  rather  than 
be  idle. 

" '  2.  He  must  run  whom  the  devil  drives. 

"'3.  The  devil  always  brings  his  pigs  to  a  bad  mar- 
ket.' " 

The  writer  adds  :  "  The  Doctor  is  a  curiosity." 

In  his  latter  days,  he  naturally  found  his  social  attrac- 
tions, more  and  more,  among  the  Episcopalians,  who 
were  generally  of  the  royal  persuasion.  His  family 
were  aided  by  the  members  of  Trinity  Church.  But 
the  Congregational  bias  of  his  sympathies  showed  itself 
to  the  end ;  for  when  the  rectors  of  Christ  Church  and 
Trinity  came  to  see  him  in  his  last  sickness,  with  their 
formal  methods  of  consolation,  and  one  of  them  asked 
him  how  he  felt,  —  "I  feel,"  said  he,  with  that  incor- 
rigible humor  which  always  had  a  tinge  of  redeeming 


11 

candor  in  it,  "I  feel  that  I  am  going  where  there  are 
no  more  bishops." 

This  was  in  1788,  when  Dr.  Byles  was  eighty-two  years 
old.  He  died  as  he  had  lived,  Puritan  in  faith  and  Tory 
in  politics.  His  leading  traits  may  seem  incongruous  to 
one  whose  conception  of  a  minister's  character  begins 
by  omitting  his  common  humanity.  But  in  any  true 
analysis,  of  a  minister  as  of  any  other  man,  there  will 
be  found  the  gay  blending  with  the  graver  moods ;  fun 
and  folly  living  side  by  side  with  wisdom,  and  sportive 
humor  coming  to  the  rescue  of  overburdened  care. 
Nature  seldom,  if  ever,  turns  every  hair  on  her  chil- 
dren's heads  to  whiteness.  The  gray  of  age  mingles 
remnants  of  youth  with  its  own  silver.  It  is  no  just 
imputation  upon  a  man's  earnestness  that  he  is  capable 
of  joking.  "If  I  did  not  tell  my  stories,"  said  Lincoln, 
to  one  who  remonstrated  with  him,  "I  should  die." 
Some  of  the  most  serious  men  in  history  have  been  the 
most  jocose.  Indeed,  there  is  justly  felt  to  be  some- 
thing lacking  in  the  man  who  cannot  appreciate  the 
humorous  side  of  life.  As  Paley  has  so  well  stated  it: 
"The  man  who  is  never  a  fool  is  always  a  fool."  I  shall 
not  take  the  trouble,  therefore,  to  exonerate  Dr.  Byles 
for  his  wit,  even  if  it  was  not  always  seasonable  or  kind. 
Nature  will  out,  and  the  work  of  grace,  as  I  conceive  it, 
is  not  to  destroy  but  to  develop  and  purify  the  common 
humanity  which  is  in  us  all.  Perchance  the  sometime 
iniquity  of  Mather  Byles'  wit  may  be  due  to  the  unnat- 
ural restraints  which  were  put.  upon  the  ministry  in  his 


13 

day.  In  the  chancel  of  the  grand  cathedral  in  Old 
Chester,  in  England,  there  is  some  wonderful  carving 
done  by  the  monks  many  years  ago.  On  the  surface 
every  image  is  saintly,  sweet,  and  becoming  the  conven- 
tional house  of  worship;  but  on  turning  up  the  sedilia, 
or  seats,  where  the  priests  sat,  there  were  carved  under- 
neath images  of  pigs  playing  upon  violins,  and  other 
conceits  as  whimsical  and  funny  as  Reinicke  Fuchs. 
It  was  the  irrepressible  love  of  the  humorous,  denied 
open  expression,  but  revenging  itself  by  this  covert  joke 
within  the  very  chancel  itself. 

The  meeting-house  in  Hollis  Street  was  promptly 
cleared  of  the  rubbish  bequeathed  to  it  by  the  British 
soldiers  of  1776.  The  Standing  Committee  were  author- 
ized to  dispose  of  an  iron  stove  left  in  the  meeting-house, 
—  the  congregations  of  that  day  brought  their  own  foot- 
stoves  with  them.  The  building  was,  however,  much 
smaller  than  the  present  one.  It  was  about  as  large  as 
our  chapel,  having  forty  pews  below  and  nine  in  the 
gallery.  Public  worship  was  resumed  here  Oct.  9,  1776. 
One  year  later,  Mr.  Ebenezer  Wight  was  unanimously 
chosen  as  Pastor.  He  accepted,  in  a  letter  of  mingled 
modesty  and  courage,  but  it  was  five  months  before  he 
came  to  his  conclusion,  he  preaching  meantime,  and 
gathering  confidence  from  the  knowledge  and  experi- 
ence which  the  time  of  probation  afforded  him.  One 
cannot  but  admire  the  caution  and  deliberation  with 
which  ministers  and  parishes  came  together  in  that 
day.     The  pastors  gave  some  proof  of  their  calling  of 


H 

God,  before  they  received  their  lower  call.  And  the 
parish  itself  made  good  its  claim,  and  its  disposition  and 
ability  to  support  and  further  the  work  of  the  minister, 
before  he,  in  his  turn,  accepted  its  call.  In  accepting  it, 
the  minister  felt  that  he  was  making  a  choice  which 
must  last  for  life,  and  the  most  solemn  and  tender  spirit 
attended  the  binding  of  this  sacred  tie.  "God  forbid," 
writes  this  young  man,  to  his  first  and  only  parish, 
"that  I  should  cease  to  pray  for  you, — that  we  may  be 
perfectly  joined  together  in  the  bonds  of  love,  and  be 
fellow-helpers  of  each  others'  joy  until  admitted  to  join 
the  Church  Triumphant."  At  the  time  of  his  settle- 
ment (1778)  he  was  twenty-eight  years  old.  These  were 
stirring  times  in  the  country.  It  must  have  required 
more  than  common  devotion  to  the  ministry  to  keep  a 
young  man  in  that  day  from  the  army.  In  the  memoir 
written  by  his  descendant  (Dr.  D.  F.  Wight),  we  are  told 
how  long  and  ardently  he  had  labored  for  the  service  of 
the  gospel  ministry.  Only  by  adding  nights  of  hard 
study  to  "laborious  days"  upon  his  father's  farm  in  Ded_ 
ham,  was  he  able  to  prepare  for  Harvard  College,  and 
having  graduated  there  in  1776,  and  passed  two  more 
years  in  study  for  his  profession  with  Rev.  Jason  Haven, 
of  Dedham,  he  became  a  candidate  and  was  soon  invited 
to  succeed  Dr.  Byles  in  this  church.  He  is  described 
as  "  a  popular  preacher,  with  a  melodious  voice,  a  distinct 
enunciation,  graceful  gesture,  an  impressive  manner,  and 
great  gifts  in  prayer.  He  eschewed  metaphysics  and 
controversial  theology  in   his   preaching,  preferring  to 


i5 

discourse  upon  the  great  truths  of  the  gospel  and  the 
duties  they  enforce.  He  devoted  himself  to  his  parish ; 
was  a  frequent  visitor  in  its  homes;  sought  out  the 
aged  and  infirm ;  was  particular  in  his  work  among  the 
young;  faithful  to  the  sick  and  afflicted ;  kind  to  the 
poor;  winning  all  hearts  by  giving  them  his  own." 
His  biographer  gives  twelve  pages  of  his  genealogy 
of  the  Wight  family  to  this,  its  most  illustrious  mem- 
ber. But  I  do  not  find  any  reference  to  my  modest 
predecessor  elsewhere,  except  in  the  records  of  the 
church.  His  ministry  of  ten  years  here  perfectly  illus- 
trates the  ease  and  certainty  with  which  a  man  of  talent 
and  devotion  —  to  use  the  language  of  his  biographer 
—  a  "popular  preacher,  a  melodious  voice,  a  distinct 
enunciation,  graceful  gesture,  impressive  manner,  and 
great  gifts  in  prayer,"  may  utterly  disappear  in  the  em- 
braces of  a  satisfied  congregation  and  give  no  sign.  Of 
course,  one  hopes  and  believes  that  this  absorption  of 
so  many  gifts  by  one  people  was  good  for  them.  The 
leaven  that  goes  into  the  bread  disappears,  but  behold 
the  comely  loaf!  Caleb  Davis  and  Thomas  Bailey,  Mr. 
Wight's  good  deacons,  have  both  presented  our  church 
with  ministerial  descendants.  It  would  be  a  rare  ques- 
tion in  spiritual  stirpitology,  how  far  the  example  and 
teaching  of  Ebenezer  Wight  affected  the  entrance  of 
Caleb  Davis  Bradlee  and  Thomas  Bailey  Fox  into  the 
ministerial  profession.  Surely  some  compensation  is 
due  to  the  man  who  so  bounded  his  ambition  and  his 
success  to  the  fifty  or  sixty  families  that  attended  his 


i6 

church.  His  own  life,  though  not  deprived  of  its  right- 
ful three-score  and  ten  by  his  labors,  was  limited  in  its 
ministerial  opportunities  to  ten.  Busied  by  day  with 
parish  calls  and  incessant  visiting,  he  was  obliged  to 
take  his  nights  for  study.  In  this  way  his  eyesight  be- 
came impaired ;  then  his  health  gave  way  in  conse- 
quence of  the  confinement  caused  by  his  tender  eyes, 
and  a  complete  debility  ensued,  which  finally  drove  him 
from  his  church,  beyond  recall. 

"Sic  transit  gloria  clerici."  It  was  a  sad  parting, 
but  the  gradual  demonstration  of  its  necessity  had  pre- 
pared the  minds  of  both  pastor  and  people  for  the  final 
act.  It  might  have  come  sooner  but  for  the  great  fire 
of  1787,  which  consumed  the  old  Hollis  Street  Meeting- 
house, and  delivered  its  congregation  to  the  hospitable 
care  of  the  Old  South  Church.  Mr.  Wight's  health  al- 
lowed him  to  alternate  with  Dr.  Eckley,  in  united  ser- 
vices in  that  church  for  a  year,  while  the  new  house  was 
building.  He  preached  in  the  new  meeting-house  on 
August  31,  1788,  and  again  a  week  later,  when  he  re- 
newed his  request  to  be  dismissed.  The  last  reference 
to  his  ministerial  work  that  I  have  seen  is  in  the  Right 
Hand  of  Fellowship  given  by  Dr.  Eckley,  at  the  Instal- 
lation of  his  successor,  Rev.  Samuel  West.  Speaking 
to  the  society  here,  and  referring  to  the  year  of  united 
services  held  in  the  Old  South  Church,  Dr.  Eckley  said : 
"The  connection  which  existed  between  us  some  time 
ago,  as  it  will  not  be  forgotten  on  my  part,  neither  will 
it,  I  trust,  on  yours  also.     Often  have  we  mingled  our 


W 
o 
o 

D 

w 

W 
H 

h—l 

Q 
O 

c 

w 
W 


i7 

souls  together  at  the  same  church,  in  humble  adoration 
of  the  God  of  Heaven ;  often  have  we  sat  as  brethren 
around  the  same  table  of  our  Saviour,  when  in  the  course 
of  duty,  your  late  worthy  and  pious  pastor,  Mr.  Wight, 
has  carried  our  spirits  to  the  Almighty  throne,  and  in 
able,  solemn,  and  pathetic  prayer,  presented  us  before 
the  Lord."  One  would  like  to  know  what  feelings  this 
tribute  aroused  in  the  retired  minister,  as  he  tended  the 
pigs  and  cows  which  were  henceforth  to  be  his  flock,  on 
the  quiet  Dedham  farm  to  which  he  went  from  Boston. 
But  hereafter  his  thoughts  are  his  own.  A  happy  pos- 
session, we  may  believe,  for  his  descendant  says  :  "  To 
him,  his  field  and  garden  were  places  of  worship ;  he 
retired  there  to  contemplate  on  the  wisdom  of  Provi- 
dence and  the  beneficence  of  the  Author  of  Nature." 
Now  begins  twenty-one  years  of  church  life  under 
Dr.  Samuel  West.  He  is  fifty  years  old  already,  having 
served  in  the  ministry  in  Needham  for  twenty-five  years. 
He  brings,  therefore,  neither  the  freshness  nor  the  green- 
ness of  youth  to  his  task.  Too  high-minded  to  haggle 
with  his  Needham  parish  over  the  payment  of  his  just 
dues,  and  really  straitened  for  want  of  them,  he  ac- 
cepted the  call  to  Hollis  Street  as  a  providential  door  of 
escape.  And  yet  so  conscientious  is  he  about  severing 
a  connection  already  broken  on  the  part  of  his  people 
by  failure  to  support  him,  that  he  fills  a  full  page  of  our 
Church  Records  with  a  statement  of  reasons,  and  writes 
a  memoir  with  further  explanations,  that  his  posterity 
may  know  with  what  caution  and  forbearance  he  had 


i8 


acted,  and  with    what   due   respect  for  the  ministerial 
name  and  calling. 

I  have  invoked,  for  my  better  knowledge  of  Dr.  West, 
some  of  those  shadowy  remains  which  ministers  leave 
behind  them  in  the  shape  of  published  sermons.  The 
dust  of  mortality  was  still  upon  them,  as  they  came 
down  from  their  appointed  shelves  in  the  library  of  the 
Massachusetts  Historical  Society.  But  I  found  in  these 
neglected  and  forgotten  pamphlets  more  than  enough  to 
justify  the  tradition  of  goodness  and  wisdom  which  is 
associated  with  the  name  of  Samuel  West.  His  Thanks- 
giving sermon  of  1795  contains  a  wonderful  historic 
parallelism  with  our  own  times.  But  in  the  sermon  he 
preached,  according  to  the  custom  of  those  days,  at  his 
own  Installation,  there  is  such  admirable  form  and  or- 
derly development  of  the  theme;  such  just  emphasis 
and  discrimination  of  values  ;  such  terse  and  cleanly  dic_ 
tion ;  such  mental  breadth  combined  with  positive  opin- 
ions of  his  own  ;  such  comprehensive  scope  and  culture, 
all  penetrated  with  earnest  piety,  —  that  I  closed  the 
book  with  a  sense  of  shame  at  the  ignorant  neglect  with 
which  I  had  treated  this  able  and  wise  predecessor. 
You,  few  people,  who  knew  and  still  remember  Dr. 
West,  have  not  told  me  the  half  of  his  greatness.  But 
how  should  you  since  you  were  no  more  than  children 
when  he  died?  I  find  in  this  discourse,  preached  in 
1788,  the  best  possible  analysis  of  the  minister's  qualifi- 
cations for  his  work,  —  one  that  I  am  glad  to  quote  in 
anticipation   of    those   remarkable   men,   who   followed 


19 

West,  in  the  pulpit  of  this  church.  Speaking  of  shining 
talents,  he  says :  "  If  they  are  not  indispensable,  they 
are,  at  least,  ornamental  to  the  ministry  and  useful  to 
the  church."  And  who  of  us,  filled  as  this  age  is  with 
the  conceit  of  science  as  almost  the  discovery  of  our 
generation,  would  expect  to  hear  a  preacher  of  nearly  a 
century  ago  saying,  that  "acquaintance  with  science, 
although  not  to  be  compared  with  experimental  acquaint- 
ance with  true  religion,  is  a  qualification  nearly  indis- 
pensable, in  those  who  are  set  for  the  defence  of  the 
gospel." 

The  Rev.  Thomas  Thatcher,  in  his  memoir  of  Dr. 
West,  says  that  his  character  is  an  exception  to  the  gen- 
eral rule;  that  clerical  biography  is  tame  and  monoto- 
nous. He  claims  for  West,  marks  of  original  genius, 
superior  learning,  social  experience,  humanity,  and  cour- 
tesy, and  even  balancing  of  the  understanding  and  the 
heart,  quite  exceptional  and  impressive.  Educated  in 
the  prevailing  Calvinism  of  his  day,  his  mind  was  too 
liberal  and  his  heart  too  generous  to  remain  in  bondage 
to  such  a  gloomy  and  contracted  system  of  divinity. 
In  preaching,  he  spoke  without  notes,  relying  upon  a 
remarkable  memory.  "His  method,"  says  Thatcher, 
"was  very  different  from  that  of  ignorant,  vociferating 
enthusiasts,  who  foam  out  extempore  the  crude,  undi- 
gested ideas  first  occurring  in  their  poor,  unlettered 
minds."     There  is  certainly  no  mark  of  crudity  or  haste 

in  the  published  sermons  that  have  come  down  to  us 

• 

The  only  surprise  we  feel  is  in  hearing  that  such  closely- 


20 

thought  and  concisely-stated  discourses  were  given  with- 
out manuscript  or  notes. 

His  moderation  and  discretion  in  times  of  peculiar 
political  controversy  and  excitement  are  remarked  by 
his  biographer.  He  maintained  friendly  relations  even 
with  tories,  an  "  effort  of  duty  not  a  little  hazardous  in 
that  season  of  suspicion."  And  yet  he  was  thoroughly 
true  to  the  liberty  of  his  country.  If  his  allusions  to 
matters  connected  with  politics  were  not  frequent,  they 
were  outspoken  when  they  came.  "  Would  to  God  there 
were  none  but  freemen  in  the  United  States ! "  an 
exclamation  in  his  Thanksgiving  sermon  has  the  true 
ring  in  it.  His  autobiography  tells  a  story  still  more 
illustrative  of  his  zeal  for  human  rights.  In  Dr.  Cotton 
Mather's  life  of  his  father,  Dr.  Increase  Mather,  it  is 
said  that  the  latter  once  made  a  present  to  his  father  of 
a  fine  black  slave,  in  consequence  of  which  Providence, 
who,  it  seems,  much  approved  of  his  conduct,  remark- 
ably smiled  upon  and  blessed  the  son.  "  How  surpris- 
ing," says  West,  "that  those  pious  people  should 
consider  one  of  the  most  criminal  actions  with  which 
a  man  can  be  charged,  buying,  or  selling,  or  giving 
away,  for  the  purpose  of  slavery,  his  fellow-creature, 
equally  with  themselves  entitled  to  freedom,  that  such 
an  action  should  merit  the  smiles  of  the  Common 
Parent  of  the  universe,  who  has  made  of  one  blood 
all  nations  of  men,  and  enjoined  on  all  to  do  by  others 
as  they  would  wish  others  to  do  by  them !  .  .  .  We  must 
suppose   they   had   something    to    say   for   themselves, 


21 

although  it  is  not  easy  to  point  out  anything  even 
plausible  to  cover  over  the  horrors  of  such  conduct." 
The  amiability  of  his  disposition  seems  to  have  been 
even  more  remarkable  than  the  breadth  of  his  mind  and 
the  discrimination  of  his  judgment.  "  He  bore,  without 
betraying  any  symptoms  either  of  anger  or  disgust,  with 
the  folly  and  persecution  of  men."  He  easily  forgave 
personal  injuries,  and  was  never  known  to  retaliate  an 
ill  office,  or  to  attempt  to  lessen  the  character  of  an 
enemy.  He  has  been  called  "an  abridgment  of  all 
that  was  pleasant  in  man,"  and  in  the  quiet  heroism 
with  which  he  bore  the  pains  of  a  prolonged  sickness, 
he  gave  the  final  testimony  to  his  consummate  Christian 
character.  The  records  of  his  ministry  show  by  their 
very  scantiness  the  peace  and  quiet  growth  that  marked 
his  stay  here.  Ephraim  Wales  and  Betsey  Trott  lead 
off  the  long  procession  of  marriages,  those  best  signs 
of  normal,  healthy  life  in  any  society.  The  first  baby 
baptized  under  Dr.  West  is  Thomas,  son  of  Nathaniel 
Bradlee ;  the  last,  is  Elizabeth,  daughter  of  Jabez  Ellis. 
Many  a  familiar  name  comes  between,  and  in  the  interval 
before  Holley  is  ordained  we  meet  with  a  cluster  of 
almost  household  names  in  this  church  to-day,  —  Cathe- 
rine Vose,  John  Davis  Weld,  Mary  Stedman  of  Timothy 
Tileston,  John  of  Thomas  Blake,  and  Paul  Dudley  of 
Joseph  Richards.  Oct.  25,  1801,  Joseph  Tuckerman 
goes  to  Chelsea,  from  this  church,  to  begin  that  min- 
istry which  was  destined  to  illustrate  so  wisely  and 
largely   the   mission   of   the   gospel   to   the   poor.      In 


22 

1789,  Arnold  Welles  presents  an  elegant  Bible  to  the 
church,  as  a  bequest  from  his  wife.  The  most  affec- 
tionate and  wholesome  relations  seem  to  have  marked 
the  entire  course  of  this  pastorate.  Beginning  with  the 
advantages  of  a  new  and  attractive  edifice,  an  increasing 
neighborhood,  a  mature  man  as  pastor,  with  unusual 
gifts  fully  ripe,  and  a  character  rarely  disciplined,  it 
ended  in  the  natural  way  by  the  death  of  the  minister, 
attended  to  the  last  by  a  faithful  and  helpful  parish. 

Brethren,  I  find  that  I  wholly  miscalculated  the  his- 
torical riches  of  our  church  when  I  proposed  to  unfold 
to  you  in  one  discourse  the  whole  treasure  of  a  century 
of  church  life.  It  cannot  be  done  without  prolonging 
our  testimony  far  beyond  the  recognized  domain  of 
Sunday  morning  discourses.  The  triple  stars  which 
come  now  within  the  field  of  our  telescope,  Holley, 
Pierpont,  and  King,  cannot  be  dismissed  with  hasty 
observation  and  the  stinted  celebration  of  the  cata- 
logue. Although  more  often  talked  about,  I  question 
if  they  are  better  known  than  their  predecessors,  whose 
characters  and  works  we  have  been  reviewing  together. 
Their  lives  and  labors  belong  rather  to  the  new  era 
than  the  old.  They  begin  and  illustrate  a  new  depart- 
ure in  the  ministerial  profession.  They  stand  more 
appropriately  at  the  beginning  of  a  new  year  than  at 
the  going  out  of  the  old  year.  Let  us  take  their  lives 
as  our  study  for  the  first  Sunday  of  the  coming  year, 
and  accept  afresh  the  church,  which  is  the  legacy  of 
such  men,  to  our  affection  and  support. 


23 

Already  we  have  reviewed  three-quarters  of  a  century 
(1732  to  1809)  in  as  many  quarters  of  an  hour.  The 
task  in  this  composition  has  been  in  the  omission  of 
interesting  facts  and  incidents,  rather  than  in  the  inter- 
weaving of  those  select  portions  which  I  have  given 
you.  The  history  of  a  church  which  anticipated  the 
Independence  of  the  country,  and  has  kept  pace  with 
its  development  until  this  day,  has  elements  of  interest 
which  justify  commemoration,  and  although  its  homely 
records  may  not  vie  in  exciting  memories  with  the 
archives  of  the  State,  to  a  lively  imagination  they  suggest 
a  truer  picture  of  bygone  generations.  In  the  pages  of 
secular  history  only  the  foremost  men  are  seen,  and  they 
commonly  in  their  robes  of  office  or  military  uniform. 
But  in  the  sober  annals  of  the  church,  men  and 
women  and  little  children,  with  no  title  but  their 
Christian  name,  come  forth  and  tell  the  story  of  their 
every-day  life.  Prompted  by  them  we  have  seen  the 
tall  and  stately  form  of  Dr.  Byles,  arrayed  in  gown 
and  bands,  with  wig  on  head,  and  psalm-book  in  hand, 
preaching  in  the  little  old-fashioned  meeting-house,  in 
December,  1732,  to  a  congregation  whose  only  hope  of 
warmth  was  in  the  foot-stove  at  their  feet  and  the  fires 
he  might  kindle  in  their  hearts.  To  him  succeeds  the 
devoted  Ebenezer  Wight,  coming  in  his  Master's  name 
in  the  midst  of  the  Revolution,  not  sent  to  destroy 
men's  lives  but  to  save  them.  And  now,  across  the 
green  field  which  separates  the  church  from  his  home  on 
Nassau  Street,  comes  the  amiable  and  learned  Dr.  West, 


24 

whose  "gown  the  children  plucked  to  share  the  good 
man's  smile " ;  retaining  amid  the  dignities  of  his  city 
parish  the  simplicity  of  the  village  vicar  of  Needham. 

Lo  !  these  are  the  representatives  and  prophets  of  that 
domestic  purity,  that  civil  order,  and  those  religious 
institutions  for  which  the  battles  were  fought  and  the 
victories  won.  They  do  not  catch  the  eye  and  deafen 
the  ear  with  the  splendor  and  noise  of  military  renown. 
But  years  after  the  smoke  of  the  battle  is  over,  and  the 
gory  plain  is  green  once  more,  it  is  found  that  the  abid- 
ing glory  of  war  is  in  the  homes  it  has  defended.  As 
amid  the  action  and  reaction  of  acid  and  mineral  pure 
crystals  of  heaven's  own  hue  are  forming,  so  amid  the 
conflict  of  arms,  peaceful  homes  are  clustering  around 
the  Church  and  the  State. 

Let  this  be  our  satisfaction  as  we  review,  at  the  close 
of  more  than  a  century  of  church  life,  the  earlier  pages 
of  its  honorable  history.  Let  the  piety  and  generosity 
of  the  fathers  inspire  us  with  a  worthy  resolution  to 
emulate  their  devotion.  Let  us  not  doubt  the  patriot- 
ism, no  less  than  the  piety  of  those  keen-sighted  men, 
who  maintained  with  equal  love  and  jealousy  a  Congre- 
gational Church  and  a  Republican  State.  Let  us  close 
the  volume  of  a  hundred  years  of  American  history, 
with  devout  thankfulness  for  the  church  which  kept  the 
symbol  of  civil  liberty  sacredly  within  her  ark,  and 
which  still  lives  to  be  the  sanctuary  of  our  best  ideals 
and  our  worthiest  hopes. 


DISCOURSE. 


Daniel  iii. ,  28. 
"Blessed  be  the  God  of  Shadrach,   Meshach,  and  Abednego,  who  hath  sent  his 
angel  and  delivered  his  servants  that  trusted  in  him,  and  have  changed  the  king's  word, 
and  yielded  their  bodies,  that  they  might  not  serve  nor  worship  any  God,  except  their 
own  God." 

Our  oldest  parishioner,  who  sees  from  her  window  to- 
day the  snows  of  her  ninety-sixth  winter,  has  given  me 
another  reminiscence  of  Dr.  West.  She  says  that  he 
once  told  her  mother  that  "  it  was  forty  years  since  he 
had  felt  his  temper."  His  autobiography,  which  has 
recently  come  into  my  hands,  in  the  original  manuscript, 
has  a  page  upon  this  subject,  which  explains  the  story. 
In  this,  he  says  that  for  many  years  he  has  not  allowed 
his  temper  to  express  itself  in  word  or  act. 

Gentle  and  wise  spirit !  May  thy  mantle  fall  on  us 
as  we  pursue  our  backward-looking  journey! 

Horace  Holley  was  twenty-eight  years  of  age  when 
he  succeeded  Dr.  West  in  Hollis  Street  Church.  He 
was  installed  here  on  the  8th  of  March,  1809.  Again 
the  minister  of  the  Old  South  was  summoned  to  take 
the  leading  place  in  the  services.  Dr.  Eckley  preached 
the  sermon.  The  two-score  years  which  had  elapsed 
since  he  gave  the  Right  Hand  of  Fellowship  to  Samuel 
West  found  him  still  at  his  post      He  alludes  in  his 


26 

sermon  to  the  part  he  had  taken  in  the  laying  of  the 
corner-stone  of  the  church  in  which  they  were  gathered, 
the  second  meeting-house  in  Hollis  Street,  and  pays  a 
just  tribute  to  the  piety  and  learning  of  their  late  pastor. 
One  passage  in  the  sermon  reads  like  prophecy  in  the 
light  of  after-events.  It  illustrates  the  ominous  import 
which  often  lurks  in  the  preacher's  rhetoric :  "  In  the 
natural  world,"  said  he,  "an  uninterrupted  summer  of 
sunshine  would,  on  the  whole,  be  less  grateful,  than  for 
the  heavens  at  times  to  be  covered  with  clouds  —  the 
lightning  of  thunder  to  send  forth  its  streams,  and  the 
wild  tempest  beat.  A  calm  and  peaceful  ocean,  with  a 
surface  smooth  as  glass,  is  a  delightful  object.  But  if 
the  wind  should  never  pass  upon  its  bosom  and  excite 
its  waves,  its  waters  might  lose  the  fineness  of  their 
transparency,  and  the  surface  cease  to  reflect  the  splen- 
dors of  the  sky." 

The  Unitarian  controversy  was  already  muttering  on 
the  horizon  when  these  services  were  held.  And  this 
young  man  with  the  lofty  brow  and  trumpet  tongue  was 
sure  to  give  no  uncertain  sound  when  his  turn  came  to 
speak.  He  had  received  his  University  training  at  Yale, 
and  pursued  his  professional  studies  under  Dr.  Dwight, 
and  in  company  with  Stewart,  who  was  afterward  profes- 
sor at  Andover.  His  three  years'  settlement  in  Fairfield, 
Conn.,  had  been  a  good  apprenticeship.  He  had  already 
tried  and  demonstrated  his  powers.  Once  settled  in 
Boston,  he  was  able  to  gain  acquaintance  with  the  true 
character  of  those  liberal  clergymen,  of  whom  he  had 


27 

heard  injurious  accounts.  His  biographer  says:  "He 
found  them  differing  from  the  Orthodox  not  only  in 
being  liberal,  but  in  having,  with  as  much  learning, 
more  simplicity  of  character,  more  independence,  and 
more  kindness."  "If  they  had  less  of  the  form  and 
show  of  religion,  they  had  quite  as  much  of  its  spirit, 
and  this  was,  he  thought,  as  it  should  be." 

It  is  not  unusual  for  the  converts  to  a  new  form  of 
religion  to  surpass  its  leaders  in  the  extremes  to  which 
they  go.  Holley  was  certainly  not  behind  the  foremost 
liberals  of  his  time.  His  active  mind  carried  every 
premise  to  its  logical  conclusion.  If  this  intellectual 
trait,  which  was  emphatically  his  mental  characteristic, 
was  a  hindrance  to  his  faith  in  what  are  called  the  mys- 
teries of  the  gospel,  let  not  the  men  who  trained  his 
mind  rebuke  him  for  his  fidelity  to  their  own  method. 
The  strength  of  Calvinism  from  the  first  has  been  in  its 
logical  consistency.  Grant  its  premises  and  you  will 
admit  its  conclusions.  This  is  the  secret  of  its  per- 
manent influence  upon  mankind.  It  is  self-consistent. 
Men  can  understand  it.  Anybody  who  can  admit  its 
first  principles,  can  see  how  the  system  follows.  I  be- 
lieve that  all  forms  of  Calvinism  owe  their  acceptance 
by  men  far  more  to  their  logical  consistency  and  adapt- 
ation to  the  understanding  of  mankind  than  to  their 
spiritual  truth  or  religious  value.  The  men  trained  by 
Calvinism  are  men  of  practised  understanding.  So 
long  as  they  can  abide  their  false  premises,  they  will 
preach  their  terrible  conclusions.     But  when  it  happens, 


28 


as  it  did  with  Holley,  that  time,  and  fuller  knowledge, 
and  wider  experience,  and  the  ability  and  courage  to 
think  independently  bring  men  to  doubt  the  very  postu- 
lates of  Orthodoxy,  then  the  system  built  upon  them 
slowly  crumbles  into  ruin. 

Another  characteristic  of  Holley's  mind  was  the  celerity 
and  accuracy  with  which  it  mastered  the  contents  of  a 
book,  and  the  readiness  to  apprehend  another's  meaning 
whether  in  writing  or  in  speech.  There  are  four  kinds 
of  readers.  The  first  kind  goes  through  a  book  as  a 
practical  farmer  runs  his  eye  over  a  field  of  grass  and 
tells  you  within  a  hundred  weight  what  the  crop  of  hay 
will  be  and  its  quality.  The  second  kind  traverses  the 
field  with  the  slow  sweep  of  his  scythe,  cutting  and 
turning  its  contents  over  and  over,  and  at  length  storing 
its  product  in  his  mind  as  into  barns.  You  will  always 
find  the  facts  of  the  book  down  to  its  least  particular  in 
his  barn,  but  they  will  be  as  dry  and  dead  as  hay.  The 
third  kind  roams  the  field,  with  selective  industry,  like 
the  bee,  and  carries  away  the  honey  of  the  clover. 
These  are  they  that  treasure  well  the  sweetest  and  best 
of  every  book,  and  leave  the  sticks  and  stalks  behind. 
And  the  fourth  kind  is  like  the  summer  wind,  which 
gently  blowing  over  the  blossoming  meadow,  takes 
nothing  but  the  perfume  of  the  flowers  in  its  breezy 
flight.  And  these  are  they  who  may  remember  little 
and  repeat  less  of  the  book  they  read,  but  in  their  gen- 
erous abandonment  of  themselves  to  the  spell  of  the 
writer,  they  may  enter  more  fully  into  his  real  thought 


29 

and  carry  away  more  of  his  spirit  than  either  of  the 
others. 

Holley  was  one  of  the  first  kind.  He  knew  almost 
at  sight  the  amount  and  value  of  a  book,  considered  in- 
tellectually, and  he  made  its  contents  serve  his  argu- 
ment with  masterly  readiness  and  skill.  His  method 
of  acquirement  was  not  the  busy  continuity  of  toil 
which  distinguishes  the  bee.  He  was  the  master- 
farmer,  whose  business  it  was  to  plan,  estimate,  direct, 
and  utilize  the  toil  of  tamer  men. 

Nature  made  him  for  a  leader  before  men  chose  him 
for  this  post.  In  person  no  less  than  in  mind  his  build 
was  ducal.  His  manly  form  and  graceful  figure  were 
surmounted  by  a  head  of  classic  beauty.  The  dark  eyes 
and  hair  of  his  mother  combined  with  the  sanguine  glow 
of  his  father's  complexion  to  present  a  rare  specimen 
of  beauty.  And  when,  as  years  passed,  the  hair  "grad- 
ually retreated  from  his  fair,  polished  forehead,"  the  loss 
in  youthful  decoration  was  more  than  compensated  by 
the  gain  in  mental  impressiveness. 

Thus  fitted  by  Nature  to  take  the  eye,  and  qualified 
by  culture  to  instruct  the  mind,  it  only  needs  to  be  added 
that  his  voice  and  style  of  oratory  were  equally  calcu- 
lated to  captivate  the  ear,  to  complete  the  picture  of 
the  consummate  public  speaker.  Beyond  dispute  and 
almost  beyond  comparison,  Holley  was  master  in  the  art 
of  addressing  an  audience.  His  rich  and  mellow  voice 
would  have  contented  the  ear  with  its  music,  even 
though  its  freight  of  meaning  had  not  satisfied  the  un- 


3° 

derstanding  of  his  hearers.  His  enunciation  was  so  per- 
fect that  every  word  dropped  from  his  lips  with  the 
distinctness  of  impression  and  honest  ring  of  a  gold 
coin  coming  from  its  die.  His  eulogist,  Dr.  Caldwell, 
of  Transylvania  University,  thus  describes  him,  as  he 
appeared  before  an  audience:  "Thus  configured,  gifted 
and  accomplished  when  he  ascended,  in  his  flowing  toga, 
the  pulpit  or  the  rostrum,  assumed  the  air  and  attitude 
of  the  orator,  and  threw  his  eyes  around  him,  on  an  ad- 
miring audience,  the  presentation  itself  was  a  burst  of 
eloquence,  an  exquisite  exordium  to  a  splendid  discourse." 
For  nine  years  (from  1809  to  18 18)  this  model  of 
physical  beauty  and  strength,  logical  understanding  and 
oratorical  excellence,  was  set  up  in  this  church,  and  great 
was  the  company  of  the  worshippers.  The  modest,  com- 
modious meeting-house  of  Dr.  West,  with  its  budding 
towers,  must  give  way  to  a  grander  structure,  whose 
horn  should  be  exalted  like  the  unicorn's.  The  wooden 
age  yields  to  the  brick  ;  comfort  now  aspires  to  elegance. 
The  dismembered  temple  goes  off  to  Braintree,  where 
it  serves  until  this  day,  "a  comely,  symmetrical  little 
building,"  writes  one  of  its  present  neighbors;  "but  the 
people  there  have  done  their  best  to  spoil  it  by  remod- 
elling and  modernizing  it.  Luckily  they  had  not  money 
enough  to  quite  spoil  it."  Meantime,  Mr.  Holley's  con- 
gregation gratefully  accept  the  invitation  of  the  First 
Church  to  unite  with  them  in  worshipping  in  their  meet- 
ing-house. Mr.  William  Emerson,  pastor  of  the  First 
Church,  was  then  bringing  to  his  people  the  beaten  oil 


PRESENT    MEETING    HOUSE. 


3i 

of  a  husbandry  almost  over  for  him  in  this  world.  He 
and  Holley  alternated  in  conducting  the  services.  Very 
likely  the  mutual  enjoyment  of  this  year  of  union  may 
have  prompted,  at  a  later  day,  the  desire  for  a  more  per- 
manent union,  which  was  openly  expressed  in  the  time 
of  Mr.  King. 

In  January,  1811,  the  grand  new  meeting-house  of 
brick  is  finished.  Here  it  stands  !  On  the  31st  day  of 
this  month  the  house  is  dedicated. 

It  is  high-water  mark  in  Hollis  Street  to-day.  The 
moving  tent  of  the  city's  population  is  now  pitched  in 
this  neighborhood.  The  large  and  influential  congrega- 
tion, wont  to  worship  here,  give  the  preacher  fit  au- 
dience and  inspiring  attention,  and  reward  him  with  the 
satisfied  feeling  that  the  truth  he  has  given  them  will 
find  appreciation  and  addition  in  their  own  minds  and 
hearts.  The  melody  of  Holley's  voice  is  answered  by 
the  harmony  of  a  large  choir,  widely  known  in  their 
day  as  the  Franklin  Hall  Singing  Society;  that  is, 
the  choir  of  Hollis  Street  Church.  Under  the  accepta- 
ble lead  of  Jacob  Guild,  this  Singing  Society  devotes 
itself  to  what  its  Constitution  calls  this  "  pleasing  and 
important  part  of  Public  Worship."  Its  members  pref- 
ace their  subscription  with  the  declaration  that  they 
conceive  it  to  be  "a  duty  incumbent  upon  them  to  aid 
and  assist,  as  much  as  in  them  lies,  in  the  worship  of 
their  Creator." 

Like  every  association  dependent  upon  voluntary 
work,  this  parish  choir  had  its  "ups  and  downs."     But 


32 

these  are  a  part  of  every  musical  score  ;  and  when,  in 
1 8 14,  the  interest  droops,  a  sermon  from  Holley,  show- 
ing "what  a  laudable  and  important  part  of  the  public 
worship  of  God  is  the  praising  Him  with  our  voices," 
revives  the  flagging  harmony,  and  brings  the  choir  back 
to  its  starting  pitch.  A  month  or  two  later  the  minister 
and  deacons  visit  the  society  at  one  of  the  rehearsals  in 
Franklin  Hall,  together  with  other  friends,  and  are  re- 
galed with  "  concord  of  sweet  sounds."  "  The  following 
pieces,"  says  the  modest  secretary,  "  were  performed  on 
the  occasion,  and,  we  believe,  with  some  gratification  to 
the  assembled  hearers:  'Denmark,'  'Cambridge,' 'Vital 
Spark,'  'Music,'  and  'Old  Hundred.'" 

Nothing  warms  the  heart  like  good  fare,  and  these 
well-fed  worshippers  grow  generous  in  their  prosperity. 
Feb.  7,  1 81 3,  Mrs.  Fox,  daughter  of  the  "late  venerable 
and  respected  Deacon  Thomas  Bayley,  presents  the 
church  with  two  silver  cups  for  the  communion-table." 

Mrs.  Eleanor  Davis,  widow  of  another  deacon,  had 
already  given  the  church  three  hundred  dollars,  to  be 
expended  in  part  in  the  purchase  of  a  clock  for  the  in- 
terior of  the  new  meeting-house,  and  the  remainder  to 
be  invested  as  the  foundation  of  a  fund  for  the  poor  of 
the  church  (May  1,  181 1).  Accordingly  an  "elegant 
clock  "  was  purchased  for  one  hundred  and  eighty-five 
dollars,  and  one  hundred  and  fifteen  dollars  were  put  into 
the  hands  of  the  deacons  for  a  poor  fund.  Generos- 
ity is  contagious.  On  May  23d  of  the  same  year,  John 
Lucas,  Esq.,  gives  a  clock  for  the   steeple.     Feb.    19, 


33 

1815,  Deacons  William  Brown,  William  Dall,  and 
Charles  Davis  are  assigned  the  pleasing  duty  of  sending 
a  letter  of  thanks  to  Benjamin  Bussey,  Esq.,  for  his 
"munificent  gift  and  generous  donation"  of  two  tables, 
on  which  were  inscribed  the  Decalogue  and  the  Lord's 
Prayer.  The  correspondence  on  this  occasion  furnishes 
as  good  a  tribute  to  the  edifying  and  harmonizing  effect 
of  Mr.  Holley's  ministry  as  can  be  found  or  could  be 
desired.  Mr.  Bussey  says  that  he  has  been  moved  to 
make  the  gift,  by  the  respect  and  regard  awakened  in 
him,  by  the  manifestation  of  energy,  harmony,  and  en- 
terprise which  the  church  had  given.  In  a  time  of 
"depression  and  discouragement  in  the  commercial 
world,  they  had  cheerfully  taken  down  their  former 
place  of  worship  and  erected  'a  noble  and  commodious 
edifice.'  All  this  they  had  done  with  a  spirit  and  in  a 
manner  which  did  them  the  greatest  credit,"  said  Mr. 
Bussey,  and  in  recognition  of  their  sacrifices  he  offered 
his  own.  A  parishioner  both  of  West  and  Holley,  he 
felt  that  the  latter  was  the  providential  successor  of  the 
beloved  and  venerable  Samuel  West,  sent  to  "  fill  the 
vacant  desk,  and  unite  us  in  the  bond  of  harmony  and 
charity."  The  deacons,  in  their  reply,  reciprocate  his 
congratulations,  echo  his  satisfaction,  and  esteem  the  ex- 
pression of  friendship  given  by  so  respectable  a  parish- 
ioner, who  has  worshipped  with  them  for  a  quarter  of  a 
century,  as  of  "great  value  in  various  views." 

It  may  interest  you  to  know  that  these  tables,  still 
guarding  this  pulpit,  on  the  right  hand  and  on  the  left, 


34 

were  made  by  Messrs.  Vose  and  Coates;  the  painting 
executed  by  John  R.  Penniman,  all  of  whom  were  con- 
sidered the  first  in  their  profession.  "And  in  the  pres- 
ent instance,"  writes  Mr.  Bussey,  "  I  flatter  myself  that 
you  will  join  me  in  the  opinion  that  they  have  done 
themselves  great  credit." 

Deacon  Brown  completed  the  list  of  gifts  when,  on  the 
following  year,  his  son  William  presented,  as  a  bequest 
from  his  father,  the  sum  of  one  hundred  dollars,  to  be 
used  in  adding  to  the  communion  service,  "already 
handsome  and  respectable,"  should  it  be  required ;  or, 
failing  that,  it  might  "  mingle  with  the  common  funds." 

With  all  these  elements  of  prosperity  and  evidences 
of  success,  what  more  could  Holley  or  his  people  ask  ? 
The  finest  meeting-house  in  town,  a  large,  united,  and 
influential  society,  the  best  oratorical  gifts  in  the  coun- 
try, an  assured  position  in  society,  and  honorable  rela- 
tions with  the  literary,  benevolent,  and  scientific  institu- 
tions for  which  Boston  was  then,  as  now,  preeminent, 
membership  of  the  School  Board,  and  the  post  of  Over- 
seer of  Harvard  College,  —  all  these  he  had,  as  the 
means  and  implements  merely  of  his  rarely-gifted 
mind  and  presiding  character. 

But  either  his  ambition  or  his  desire  for  usefulness 
was  not  satisfied.  Or  it  may  be  that  the  preponderance 
of  his  intellectual  culture  and  development  became  too 
much  for  his  devotional  interest  and  pastoral  patience. 
We  can  imagine  such  a  man  —  a  student  by  taste  and 
natural  proclivity,  devoted  to  mental  philosophy  and  the 


35 

study  of  language,  and  every  year,  with  the  maturing  of 
his  mind,  finding  his  calling,  where  he  found  his  joy,  in 
the  pursuit  of  these  themes  —  becoming  restive  under 
the  necessary  interruptions  and  diversions  of  parish 
life,  and  finally  breaking  away  from  the  ministry  of  the 
church  to  the  service  of  the  university.  Some  such 
experience,  we  are  persuaded,  lay  behind  his  favorable 
hearing  of  the  invitation,  twice  made  to  him,  to  take  the 
presidency  of  Transylvania  University  in  Lexington, 
Ky.  His  wife,  who  has  written  his  memoir,  has  no 
adequate  explanation  to  give  of  her  husband's  leaving 
so  brilliant  a  sphere,  and  one  to  which  he  was  so  pecul- 
iarly adapted,  as  that  which  he  filled  in  the  metropolis 
of  New  England.  "  Such  a  step,"  she  says,  "  almost 
persuades  one  to  yield  to  the  superstition  of  fatalism,  by 
which  each  individual  is  led  to  the  accomplishment  of 
his  destiny." 

I  suppose  few  men  have  left  behind  them  a  more  regret- 
ful parish.  Holley's  determination  to  go  seems  to  have 
been  the  only  reason  which  could  persuade  his  people  to 
dismiss  him.  No  stronger  endorsement  of  his  preach- 
ing or  character  could  well  be  given  than  is  given  in 
their  letter  of  farewell.  Such  men  as  Benjamin  West, 
the  worthy  son  of  good  Samuel  West,  long  a  pillar  in 
the  church  his  father  had  honored  by  his  purity,  Samuel 
May,  William  Brown,  Joseph  Richards,  Charles  Davis, 
Barzillai  Homes,  and  William  Dall,  whose  names  are 
attached  to  this  letter,  mean  what  they  say.  Holley's 
letter  in  reply,  gratefully  accepting  their  praises,  justly 


36 

shares  the  merit  of  the  church's  success  with  the  people 
who  had  heartily  sustained  him  in  the  preaching  of  those 
things  which  "  numbers  in  the  community  had  been  in- 
clined to  consider  as  novelties,  and  a  few  as  dangerous 
errors."  He  had  taught  them  that  "  truth  and  honesty 
are  the  best  policy,  not  only  in  the  ordinary  affairs  of 
life,  but  in  that  profession  which  of  all  others  brings  a 
man  most  immediately  into  contact  with  the  errors,  the 
prejudices,  the  fears,  and  the'  intolerance  of  others." 

Happily  it  forms  no  necessary  part  of  these  remi- 
niscences of  the  life  of  this  church  to  follow  President 
Holley  through  the  fiery  trials  which  were  to  try  him 
in  his  new  field  of  labor.  A  sudden  and  brilliant  suc- 
cess, soon  changed  by  sectarian  hate  and  treachery  into 
mortifying  failure,  is  the  brief  story  of  his  eight  years 
at  Transylvania.  As  he  stood  in  his  pulpit  on  that  last 
Sunday  of  his  pastorate  here,  the  pews,  the  aisles,  the 
very  steps  of  the  pulpit  thronged  with  hearers,  now 
lifted  by  his  eloquence  into  the  rapture  of  high  agree- 
ment, and  now  weeping  at  the  thought  that  they  should 
see  his  face  no  more,  did  no  monition  of  his  coming 
trials  attend  him  ?  If  it  did,  his  purpose  was  un- 
changed. He  went  to  Kentucky,  where  he  lived  until 
March,  1827.  He  left  Lexington,  "accompanied  for  a 
considerable  distance  by  a  procession  of  pupils,  citizens, 
and  friends,  who  testified  by  every  expression  of  affec- 
tionate sorrow  their  sincere  attachment  to  his  person 
and  character."  Not  discouraged  by  his  experience  in 
Kentucky,  he  undertook  the  equally  difficult  task  of 
restoring  the  college  of  New  Orleans. 


37 

But  over-exertion  in  this  treacherous  climate,  in  the 
early  summer  months,  compelled  him  to  seek  bodily 
relief  by  a  voyage  to  New  England.  Too  late !  He 
died  at  sea,  July  31,  1827,  a  few  days  after  leaving  New 
Orleans. 

Gentle  Izaak  Walton,  in  his  life  of  Mr.  George  Her- 
bert, says  of  his  widow:  "Thus  she  continued  mourning 
till  time  and  conversation  had  so  moderated  her  sorrows 
that  she  became  the  happy  wife  of  Sir  Robert  Cook,  of 
Highnam." 

Jan.  25,  1 8 19,  four  months  after  Holley  had  left  his 
inconsolable  parish,  they  had  unanimously  elected  Mr. 
John  Pierpont  to  be  their  minister.  Verily  the  tongue 
is  a  great  consoler.  Time  cannot  claim  a  large  share  in 
this  business  of  reconciliation.  But  was  there  not  rea- 
son for  their  happy  agreement  in  the  person  of  the  new 
incumbent?  His  life  had  followed  with  singular  exact- 
ness the  footsteps  of  Holley.  Like  him,  he  was  a  son 
of  Connecticut  (born  in  Litchfield,  April  6,  1785);  a 
graduate  of  Yale  (1804),  at  first  a  student  of  the  law, 
and  afterwards,  with  a  brief  interval  of  business  life,  a 
minister. 

If  we  fully  realized  that  we  daily  pass  upon  the  street, 
unnoticing  and  unnoticed,  people  whose  lives  are  des- 
tined one  day  to  exert  a  powerful  influence  upon  our 
own  lives,  it  might  give  us  pause.  But  cui  bono?  Our 
fate  is  not  labelled.  I  offer  the  reflection  only  as  an 
added  inducement  to  treat  everybody  with  civility. 
There  were  Horace  Holley  and  John    Pierpont  pursu- 


3» 

ing  their  studies  at  the  same  time,  at  Yale,  passing  one 
another  in  the  college-yard,  reading  the  same  books, 
looking  up  to  the  same  professors,  animated  by  the 
same  high  ambition  to  excel,  and  destined  one  day  to 
take  upon  themselves  the  same  responsible  position  in 
this  city,  and  yet  hardly  on  speaking  terms  with  one 
another.  Later  in  life,  when  Holley  was  settled  here, 
Pierpont  shared  the  hospitality  of  his  house  and  the 
rare  courtesy  of  which  he  was'  a  consummate  master. 
Outwardly  no  two  men  could  be  greater  contrasts  than 
were  these  two.  Nor  were  their  mental  traits  the  same. 
Likeness  with  a  difference  is  the  common  condition  of 
happy  succession  to  a  much  loved  predecessor.  Our 
new  minister  had  some  likeness  to  his  forerunner,  but 
more  difference.  He  was  like  in  the  breadth  and  rea- 
sonableness of  his  doctrines ;  in  the  manly  freedom  of 
his  thought  and  speech  ;  in  the  strength  of  his  convic- 
tions and  his  faithfulness  to  them ;  in  the  variety  of 
his  gifts  and  the  versatility  of  his  talents;  but  he 
differed  wholly  in  look,  manner,  style  of  oratory,  favor- 
ite subjects  of  study,  and  mode  of  action.  The  dif- 
fering mould  in  which  their  thoughts  were  cast  shows 
itself  in  the  differing  forms  of  their  composition. 
There  are  three  types  of  mind:  — 

ist.  The  logical;  in  this  the  understanding  prepon- 
derates. 

2d.  The  analogical;  in  this  comparative  imagination 
is  preeminent. 

3d.  The  prophetic;  in  this  is  seen  the  intuition  of 
cause  and  effect. 


39 

At  the  risk  of  anticipating  our  conclusion,  before 
the  evidence  is  given,  let  me  say  here,  that  Holley's 
mind  was  preeminently  logical ;  Pierpont's,  analogical ; 
and  King's  was  prophetic. 

Not  that  either  of  these  remarkable  men  was  desti- 
tute of  the  mental  traits  and  powers  thus  apportioned 
by  preeminence  to  the  other.  Pierpont  had  in  a 
marked  degree  the  prophetic  power,  the  divination  of 
cause  and  effect,  in  all  the  medley  of  sequences  in 
which  the  life  of  nature  and  of  man  goes  on.  Some- 
times his  imagination  got  the  better  of  his  spiritual 
discernment  or  intuition  of  the  cause,  and  then  he 
was  merely  a  surface  composer,  like  nine-tenths  of  the 
rhetoricians  and  rhymsters  of  every  age,  only  far  more 
witty  than  most  of  them.  But  in  the  times  when  his 
genius  played  freely  and  purely,  he  was  a  true  discerner 
of  vital  issues  and  real  relationships.  He  was  the  most 
original  of  this  remarkable  trio  of  preachers.  Had  his 
mind  turned  exclusively  to  metaphysical  studies,  he 
would  have  originated  something  where  Holley  only 
furnished  a  convenient  classification,  a  logical  system 
and  brilliant  lectures.  But  the  whole  trend  of  his 
nature  was  towards  moral  reforms,  social  problems, 
national  questions.  Not  thinkings  but  things  were  his 
studies.  His  objects  of  thought  were  not  abstractions, 
but  men  and  women. 

He  could  not  think  "sin"  without  imagining  the 
"sinner,"  and  all  the  hatred  we  are  taught  to  feel 
towards  "sin"  came  from  him  in  the  shape  of  personal 


40 

attack  upon  the  sinner.  Now,  no  man  is  a  sinner  and 
nothing  else.  The  worst  of  us  have  some  good  in  us, 
and  we  do  not  like  to  be  treated  as  if  we  were  incarnate 
sin,  because  some  sins  are  justly  laid  at  our  door.  Some 
people  have  a  way  of  correcting  your  faults  as  if  you 
were  no  better  than  an  Augean  stable.  I  have  no 
doubt  that  the  lively  imagination,  the  objective  mental 
habit,  the  practical  identification  of  wrong  and  the 
the  wrong-doer,  which  were  constitutional  in  Pierpont, 
led  him  sometimes  into  unjust  insinuations  and  unmer- 
ited condemnation.  I  very  much  doubt  if  he  knew,  or 
could  know,  never  having  experienced  it,  how  much  his 
face  and  manner  added  to  the  weight  of  his  rebuke  and 
the  aggravation  of  his  ridicule. 

I  shall  never  forget  the  only  occasion,  since  I  have 
arrived  at  years  of  manhood,  when  I  saw  this  remark- 
able man.  It  was  in  Brooklyn,  at  an  autumnal  con- 
ference. We  were  holding  a  conference  meeting,  pre- 
paratory to  the  communion  service.  A  hazardous 
arrangement,  and,  as  it  proved,  an  unhappy  one.  For  in 
the  midst  of  the  conference  a  gray-haired,  gray-bearded 
man  arose,  and,  pointing  with  deliberate  finger  towards 
the  centre  of  the  broad  aisle,  declared  that  the  ministers 
had  seen  a  dreaded  figure  there,  daring  them  to  speak 
out  on  the  subject  of  slavery,  and  they  had  not  done  it. 
This  was  John  Pierpont.  "  Did  he  mean  to  apply  that 
remark  to  that  church  ?"  was  the  excited  inquiry  of  its 
minister.  "Yes,. and  to  all  the  others,"  was  the  blunt 
reply.     And,  furthermore,  when  Dr.  Channing's  church 


4i 

was  wanted  for  the  commemoration  of  Follen,  it  was 
refused,  because  of  Follen's  anti-slavery  principles.  Up 
rises  the  grieved  and  indignant  minister  of  that  church, 
denying,  as  he  said  he  had  been  compelled  to  do  before, 
under  the  same  provocation,  the  truth  of  the  impression 
made  by  the  speaker's  words  :  — 

"  Do  I  understand  Dr.  Gannett  to  deny  that  the 
church  was  refused  to  the  friends  of  Dr.  Follen  for  his 
eulogy  ? " 

Again,  the  grieved,  indignant  protest  against  erro- 
neous inference  from  incontrovertible  facts. 

Then  a  repetition  of  the  charge  by  this  merciless 
voice,  with  the  added  injury  of  claiming  Dr.  Gannett's 
corroboration  of  his  statement,  and  by-and-by  the  end, 
which,  alas!  no  communion  service  could  sweeten.  I 
thought  I  saw  in  this  incident  how  completely  Pierpont's 
absorption  in  some  needed  reform  or  really  just  cause 
might  make  him  heedless  of  occasions  and  merciless 
towards  opponents.  If  his  manner  had  such  power  to 
provoke  a  saint,  what  might  it  not  do  with  people  who 
did  not  affect  or  aim  to  be  saints  ? 

I  mention  this  incident  because  it  illustrates  what  I 
believe,  —  that  it  was  the  manner  as  much  as  the  matter 
of  Pierpont's  preaching  which  gave  so  much  offence  to 
his  people.  The  charges  on  which  it  was  sought  to 
sever  his  connection  with  this  church  were  passed  upon 
at  the  time  by  both  ecclesiastical  and  civil  tribunals, 
and  decided  in  his  favor.  They  do  not  need  rejudg- 
ment  at  this  day.     More  especially  as  time  has  vindi- 


42 

cated  the  moral  worth  and  pressing  importance  of  his 
leading  reforms, — anti-slavery,  temperance,  and  the 
abolition  of  imprisonment  for  debt ;  the  harmlessness 
at  least  of  his  phrenological  speculations  ;  the  excellence 
and  propriety  of  his  literary  work  and  efforts  on  behalf 
of  education,  and  the  innocence  of  his  practical  inven- 
tions. To-day,  these  excursions  from  the  traditional 
work  of  the  ministry  would  add  to  his  popularity  and 
influence.  For  there  must  either  be  greater  latitude  in 
the  choice  of  pulpit  themes  and  the  range  of  ministerial 
walks  than  the  conventional  standard  of  that  day 
allowed,  or  ministers  of  generous  gifts  and  great  powers 
will  steal  a  vacation  for  their  minds,  in  literature,  science, 
and  practical  invention. 

I  know  the  perils  attending  universal  sympathies  and 
indiscriminate  work;  perils  of  diffused  powers  and 
talents  scattered  abroad.  No  man  can  be  all  things, 
without  becoming  nothing.  If  Paul  be  cited  to  the 
contrary,  I  reply,  that  no  man  was  more  stubbornly 
himself  and  not  another,  under  all  circumstances,  than 
was  Paul.  It  was  only  in  surface  agreement  that  he 
accommodated  himself  to  all  men.  Meantime,  under 
his  tunic,  he  was  always  Paul,  the  apostle  to  the  Gen- 
tiles, an  ambassador  of  Christ.  A  burning  individuality 
and  consuming  religious  purpose  like  Paul's  converts 
every  good  service  into  Christian  ministry.  Every  tent 
he  makes  is  a  tabernacle,  and  every  letter  he  writes  is 
Scripture. 

Something  of    the  Pauline  catholicity  of    heart  and 


43 

mind  belonged  to  Pierpont.  If  only  with  his  severity 
he  had  combined  more  love,  or  had  more  of  Paul's 
affectionate  expressiveness,  the  result  of  his  preaching 
here  might  have  been  different.  It  must  not  be  forgot- 
ten, in  this  review  of  his  ministry  in  this  church,  that 
for  eight  years  of  warfare  there  were  eighteen  years  of 
peace,  prosperity,  and  mutual  edification. 

History  is  partial  to  war.  Pierpont's  name  is  always 
associated  with  the  great  controversy.  But  behind  that 
are  long  years  of  eloquent  and  tender  services,  whose 
memory  endures  in  grateful  hearts  to  this  day.  The 
dignity  and  distance  of  his  ordinary  manner  concealed 
the  fount  of  sympathy  within  his  heart.  But  it  was 
there.  Those  who  knew  him  in  sickness  or  bereave- 
ment bear  testimony  to  his  affectionate  comforting.  In 
the  pulpit  he  fully  supplied  the  place  of  Holley,  his 
moral  earnestness  adding  heat  to  his  predecessor's  in- 
tellectual fires,  and  his  poetic  sense  adorning  his  ser- 
mons with  rare  beauty  of  illustration  and  grace  of 
composition.  His  eye  for  likenesses  in  things  most 
distant  from  each  other  in  time  and  association  often 
gave  his  similes  or  quotations  the  effect  of  novelty  and 
the  charm  of  surprise.  This  came  of  his  poetic  con- 
stitution and  aptness  for  analogy.  If  it  sometimes  ran 
into  the  unreality  of  fancy,  it  more  often  stopped  within 
the  confines  of  wit.  I  do  not  know  that  in  his  sermons 
it  ever  savored  of  irreverence.  But  in  some  of  his 
letters  he  certainly  made  free  with  the  language  of 
the   Bible  with   unwonted  assurance.     But   the  life  of 


44 

correspondence  is  in  its  freedom.  His  preaching  was 
in  the  main  so  good  that  nobody  expected  to  improve 
upon  it  by  a  change  of  ministers.  His  reading  of  the 
Bible  and  hymns  was  refreshing.  Familiar  chapters 
and  tired  verses  were  winged  anew  by  his  divining 
spirit  and  interpreting  voice.  But  he  not  only  inter- 
preted, he  wrote.  In  a  little  book  compiled  for  the  use 
of  this  church,  there  appeared  eight  hymns  for  com- 
munion, attributed  to  G.  Carseer.  They  were  John 
Pierpont's.  Here  is  one  of  them,  with  the  text:  "And 
when  they  had  sung  a  hymn,  they  went  out  into  the 
Mount  of  Olives." 

"  The  winds  are  hushed ;  —  the  peaceful  moon 
Looks  down  on  Zion's  hill ; 
The  city  sleeps  ;  'tis  night's  calm  noon ; 
And  all  the  streets  are  still,  — 

"  Save,  when,  along  the  shaded  walks, 
We  hear  the  watchman's  call, 
Or  the  guard's  footstep,  as  he  stalks 
In  moonlight  on  the  wall. 

"  How  soft,  how  holy,  is  this  light ! 
And  hark  !  a  mournful  song, 
As  gentle  as  these  dews  of  night, 
Floats  on  the  air  along. 

"  Affection's  wish,  devotion's  prayer, 
Are  in  that  holy  strain  ; 
'Tis  resignation,  —  not  despair; 
'Tis  triumph,  —  though  'tis  pain. 


45 

"  Tis  Jesus  and  his  faithful  few, 
That  pour  that  hymn  of  love  ; 
O  God  !  may  we  the  song  renew 
Around  thy  board  above." 

His  consecrated  muse  inspired  the  ordination  hymns 
of  William  Ware  and  Sewall,  Burnap  and  Motte,  Barry 
and  Bigelow,  Sargent  and  Holland  and  Dorr.  It  dedi- 
cated with  holy  verse  the  churches  in  Quincy,  Cincin- 
nati, Plymouth,  Salem,  the  South  Congregational  Church 
in  Boston,  the  Bethel,  Mariner's  Home,  and  the  chapels 
in  Chardon  Street  and  Suffolk  Street.  Nearly  all  the 
charitable  institutions  of  Boston  received  a  song  for 
their  anniversaries.  Temperance  festivals  needed  noth- 
ing stronger  for  their  cheer  than  his  ardent  verses 
supplied.  And  days  of  national  celebration  courted 
and  received  the  approbation  of  his  pen.  The  wide 
compass  of  his  poetic  endowment  may  be  seen  by 
contrasting  the  delicate  fancy  and  pathos  of  "  Passing 
Away"  with  the  spirited  address  of  Warren  to  the 
American  soldiers :  "  Stand !  the  ground's  your  own, 
my  braves."  These  verses  were  nearly  all  written 
during  his  ministry  in  this  church.  One  wonders  in 
looking  over  his  full  and  accurate  church  records, 
written  in  a  style  that  shames  all  other  writing  with 
its  matchless  grace  and  clearness,  how  he  found  time 
amid  such  crowded  parish  and  inter-ecclesiastical  duties 
to  do  so  much  in  literature  and  reform.  I  find  the 
names  of  most  of  the  Unitarian  clergymen  of  Boston 
in   these   records,   and   many   others,    accompanied   by 


46 

votes  of  the  church  to  attend  their  ordinations.  Gan- 
nett, Young,  Barrett,  Capen,  Motte,  Emerson,  Newell, 
Putnam,  Fox,  Thompson,  Bigelow,  Robbins,  Lothrop, 
Briggs,  Barnard,  Gray,  Hall,  Everett,  Ware,  Bartol, 
Weiss,  all  were  planted  during  Pierpont's  ministry, 
and  sought  the  fellowship  of  his  church,  and  many  of 
them  the  assistance  of  his  word.  Our  missionary  to 
India,  C.  H.  A.  Dall,  was  getting  inspiration  for  his 
life-work  in  this  church,  at  this  time,  and  the  first  army 
of  the  Warren  Street  Chapel  was  recruited  and  drilled 
by  Rev.  Charles  Barnard  in  our  vestry. 

The  sonorous  bell,  which  still  hangs  in  our  steeple, 
was  purchased  for  the  church  in  Pierpont's  time.  It 
was  cast  in  Medway,  Mass.,  by  George  Handel  Hol- 
brook,  and  bears  date  1828.  It  was  pronounced  by 
Dr.  Lowell  Mason  and  Jonas  Chickering  the  most 
musical-toned  bell  in  the  city.  And  Pierpont  took 
especial  delight  in  its  prompt,  clear,  far-resounding 
tones.  He  would  listen  for  it  in  his  study,  and  per- 
chance pitched  his  own  fearless  song  by  it.  Around 
its  head,  cast  into  its  enduring  substance,  is  this 
legend  :  — 

"  I  to  the  church  the  living  call, 
And  to  the  grave  do  summon  all." 

Three  hundred  and  eighty  couples,  led  off  by  Nathan- 
iel Butler  and  Mary  Rose,  make  up  the  record  of  mar- 
riages. Six  hundred  and  forty-five  baptisms  attest  the 
frequency  with  which  this  beautiful  rite  was  adminis- 


47 

tered,  and  the  healthy  increase  of  the  flock.  John 
Langdon  Coffin,  Catherine  Everett,  and  John,  son  of 
John  Pierpont,  came  in  the  first  year.  The  report  of 
five  hundred  and  sixty  deaths  shows  how  large  a  claim 
was  made  upon  Mr.  Pierpont's  sympathies  and  powers 
of  consolation. 

No  wonder  that  he  suffered,  despite  his  vigorous 
frame,  under  these  accumulated  labors.  In  1829  he 
was  compelled  to  journey,  and  went  westward  on  a 
three  months'  trip,  preaching  during  his  absence  in 
the  larger  cities  which  he  visited.  Six  years  later  he 
was  sick  for  five  months,  and  was  allowed  a  year's  leave 
of  absence  for  travel  in  Europe.  The  payment  of  his 
salary  in  full,  and  a  large  donation  of  money  besides, 
show  the  generous  regard  in  which  he  was  held  by  his 
people.  The  man  who  could  hold  and  satisfy  this 
church  for  twenty  years,  following  closely  in  the  foot- 
steps of  Holley,  was  no  common  or  unattractive  man. 
We  have  seen  some  of  his  gifts,  and  traced,  not  untruly, 
I  hope,  the  leading  lines  of  his  character  and  work. 

But  I  cannot  feel  content  to  dismiss  so  remarkable  a 
man  and  so  prominent  a  figure  in  the  annals  of  this 
church,  with  no  more  than  the  dull  recorder's  list  of 
parts,  properties,  and  events.  Of  these,  there  are  many 
who  hear  me,  to  whom  I  had  better  listen  than  recite. 
I  have  but  gathered  up  and  presented  to  you,  with  all 
the  fulness  the  limits  of  time  allow,  the  testimony  I 
have  received  from  yourselves.  Now  a  word  for  my- 
self.    I  know  not,  by  personal  observation,  what  faults 


48 

this  man  may  have  had,  or  what  indiscretions  he  may 
have  committed  ;  but  for  one,  I  honor  him,  yes,  with  all 
the  passion  and  admiration  of  my  heart,  I  love  and 
honor  the  courage  of  the  man,  and  his  uncompromising 
faithfulness  to  the  truths  he  believed.  I  pray  to  God, 
that  when  I  come  to  stand  beiore  that  Judgment-seat 
which  alone  can  exalt  and  cast  down,  I  may  be  found 
to  have  been  as  true  as  he  was  to  the  absolute  demands 
of  righteousness,  temperance,  and  judgment  to  come. 
If  I  do  not  repeat  his  ways,  it  is  not  that  I  love  his 
cause  the  less.  Hail !  mighty  shade !  If  mortal  sound 
can  now  reach  you,  if  you  are  lingering  still,  grieved 
and  indignant  at  the  lasting  wrongs  of  earth,  or  if 
attentive  to  the  old  church  bell,  whose  tones  you  used 
to  ope  your  windows  to  hear  in  the  solemn  night,  you 
come  again  to  worship  within  these  walls,  —  your  son 
salutes  you  ! 

"  On  the  warm  dry  slope  of  Auburn's  wood-crowned  hill, 
That  overlooks  the  Charles,  and  Roxbury's  fields 
That  lie  beyond  it,  as  lay  Canaan's  green 
And  smiling  landscape  beyond  Jordan's  flood, 
As  seen  by  Moses." 

Pierpont  chose  his  grave  in  the  hour  when  he  made 
choice  to  leave  this  church.  In  tender  verse,  he  thus 
addresses  it :  — 

"  Standing  by  thy  side, 
I  see  the  distant  city's  domes  and  spires. 
There  stands  the  church,  within  whose  lofty  walls 


49 

My  voice  for  truth,  and  righteousness,  and  God  — 

But  all  too  feebly,  —  has  been  lifted  up 

For  more  than  twenty  years,  but  now  shall  soon 

Be  lifted  up  no  more.     I  chose  this  spot, 

And  marked  it  for  my  grave,  that,  when  my  dust 

Shall  be  united  to  its  kindred  dust, 

They  who  have  loved  me  —  should  there  any  such 

E'er  stand  beside  it  and  let  fall  a  tear,  — 

May  see  the  temple  where  I  toiled  so  long, 

And  toiled,  I  fear,  in  vain. No,  not  in  vain 

For  all  who've  come  to  offer,  in  that  house, 

Their  weekly  sacrifice  of  praise  and  prayer ! 

For  there  are  some,  I  humbly  hope  and  trust, 

To  whom  my  voice,  in  harmony  with  truth, 

Hath  helped  to  make  that  house  '  the  gate  of  heaven.' 

May  there  be  many  such  !     But,  oh  !  my  grave, 

When  my  cold  dust  is  sleeping  here  in  thee, 

The  question  that  shall  most  concern  the  spirit 

That  shall  have  left  that  dust,  and  gone  to  give 

Its  dread  account  in  at  the  bar  of  God, 

Will  not  be,  '  What  success  hath  crowned  thy  labors  ? ' 

But,  'With  what  faithfulness  were  they  performed?'" 

Is  there  any  heart  so  cold  that  it  will  not  join  the 
message  of  reconciliation  which  this  church  sends  to 
that  appealing  grave  to-day  :  "Peace  be  to  thee  !  "  And 
let  all  the  people  say  "  Amen." 

The  monument  which  marks  his  body's  resting-place 
reports  that,  after  leaving  us,  he  was  minister  of  the 
church  in  Troy,  N.  Y.,  in  1845,  and  in  Medford,  Mass., 
in  1849;  Chaplain  of  the  Twenty-second  Regiment  of 
Massachusetts  Volunteers  before  Washington,  in   1862, 


5o 

and  died  in  Medford,  Aug.  27,  1866.  And  then,  with  a 
power  of  truth  which  gives  impressive  dignity  to  the 
alliteration,  come  these  words :  Poet,  Patriot,  Preacher, 
Philosopher,  Philanthropist,  Pierpont. 

From  1846  to  1847,  Rev.  David  Fosdick  was  the 
minister  of  this  society.  His  brief  term  of  service 
does  not  furnish  material  for  lengthy  commemoration, 
and  his  life,  still  spared  by  death,  exempts  him  from 
public  eulogy.  But  there  are  people  in  this  church  who 
remember  him  with  affection ;  and  justice  bids  us  say, 
that  if  he  failed,  he  only  failed  to  accomplish  the  impos- 
sible. 

What  other  man  could  be  found  brave  enough  and 
strong  enough  to  rally  the  scattered  members  of  this 
society,  form  them  into  line,  recruit  their  decimated 
ranks,  restore  their  depressed  valor,  and  lead  them  to  a 
new  advance  ?  The  Rev.  Ephraim  Peabody,  of  New 
Bedford,  had  been  selected  for  this  superhuman  task, 
before  Mr.  Fosdick  was  called.  But  although  his  spirit 
was  willing,  and  eager,  even,  to  undertake  a  work  so 
difficult,  yet  so  congenial  to  his  pacific  nature,  the  flesh 
was  too  weak  to  warrant  the  attempt. 

The  same  consideration  of  uncertain  health  compelled 
the  Rev.  Thomas  Starr  King,  of  Charlestown,  to  decline 
the  call  extended  to  him  by  this  parish  in  May,  1848. 
But  in  October  of  the  same  year,  after  a  sea-voyage  had 
restored  his  bodily  vigor,  Mr.  King  accepted  a  second 
call.  In  the  whole  range  of  the  ministry  eligible  to  this 
pulpit,  no  man  could  have  been  found  better  fitted  for 


, 


5i 

the  peculiar  task  awaiting  him  here.  A  natural  orator, 
his  kindling  countenance  and  ringing  voice  charmed  his 
audience  into  delighted  attention,  even  before  the  wis- 
dom of  his  thought  and  the  richness  of  his  illustration 
had  made  their  claim  upon  his  hearers'  respect  and 
admiration.  The  son  of  a  clergyman,  he  came  to  the 
ministry  as  to  his  just  inheritance.  His  father's  early 
death  had  laid  upon  him  the  responsibilities  of  manhood 
while  he  was  yet  a  boy,  and  the  quick  maturity  of  his 
mind  and  character  was  doubtless  hastened  by  this 
circumstance. 

It  also  deprived  him  of  that  academical  training,  to 
which  his  rare  intellect  entitled  him,  and  which  his 
scholarly  ambition  coveted.  But  few  graduates  of  the 
university  could  show,  at  twenty-four,  the  varied  knowl- 
edge, the  clear  understanding,  the  true  discernment,  and 
the  ready  command  and  felicitous  expression  of  his 
thoughts,  which  distinguished  this  young  clergyman  of 
Hollis  Street  Church.  He  had  kept  the  best  company 
in  reading,  and,  so  far  as  his  opportunities  allowed,  in 
his  literary  friendships,  and  the  fruits  were  abundant  in 
all  his  work.  A  judicious  critic  and  high  authority  in 
mental  philosophy,  Dr.  James  Walker,  on  being  asked 
if  Mr.  King's  lecture  on  "  Goethe  "  was  not  remarkable 
for  a  young  man,  answered  :  "  Remarkable  for  any  man." 
His  love  of  the  beautiful  in  art  and  nature,  and  the 
breadth  of  his  literary  sympathies,  tempted  his  powers 
into  vigorous  play  outside  the  beaten  track  of  theology 
and  homiletics. 


52 

His  lectures  on  "  Socrates,"  "  Goethe,"  "  Sight  and 
Insight,"  and  other  kindred  topics,  gave  him  a  wide 
reputation  as  a  lecturer,  and  the  solid  worth  of  these 
addresses,  combined  with  the  grace  and  charm  of  their 
delivery,  attracted  to  the  church  many  strangers  visiting 
in  the  city.  Add  to  these  exceptional  gifts  of  mind  and 
attractions  of  manner,  a  happy  temperament  teeming 
with  health  and  cheerfulness,  a  heart  of  only  too  gener- 
ous susceptibility,  a  nature  incapable  of  understanding 
malice,  and  you  will  see  how  rarely  this  man  was  fitted 
for  the  ministry  of  reconciliation  to  which  he  was  called. 
Men  might  differ  from  his  opinion,  but  they  could  not 
have  a  difference  with  him.  His  earnest  sympathy  with 
freedom,  and  temperance,  and  every  true  reform,  found 
expression  from  this  pulpit,  in  no  measured  terms  ;  but 
no  man  loved  him  the  less  for  his  faithful  speaking. 

The  gradual  restoration  of  the  society  under  his  in- 
spiring prophecy  and  genial  companionship  was  as 
natural  and  inevitable  as  the  renewal  of  spring-time 
after  the  desolation  of  winter.  Nothing  could  long 
withstand  this  incarnate  sunshine.  Always  giving,  he 
provoked  generosity  in  others.  The  cold-hearted  were 
melted  by  his  heat ;  the  downcast  cheered  by  his  con- 
tagious good-will;  the  sick  enjoyed  his  visits  as  they 
enjoyed  the  air  and  light;  the  afflicted  knew  that  he 
was  afflicted  with  them,  and  found  comfort  in  his  uncon- 
querable faith  and  grand  confession  of  immortality  and 
the  life  everlasting.  His  friend,  E.  P.  Whipple,  says  of 
him  :  "  He  so  bound  others   by  the  occupancy  of  their 


53 

hearts,  that  they  loved  him  as  a  second  self.  Every  one 
he  met  he  unconsciously  enriched.  Meanness,  envy, 
malice,  avarice,  hatred,  all  bad  passions  shrank  away 
abashed  at  the  heat  of  the  sunlight  of  his  nature." 

The  growing  confidence  and  sense  of  recovered  power 
in  the  church  is  shown,  when  in  May,  1854,  ample  pro- 
vision is  made  for  extensive  repairs,  and  the  spacious 
pulpit,  which  still  stands,  is  built.  Two  years  later  a 
new  organ  responds  to  the  pulpit  with  fitting  symmetry 
of  form  and  harmony  of  tones.  Private  generosity 
gives  the  pure  and  graceful  font,  with  its  perpetual 
promise :  "  To  you  and  to  your  children."  It  was  pre- 
sented to  the  church  by  Mr.  A.  W.  Thaxter.  Mean- 
time the  increasing  reputation  and  influence  of  Mr. 
King  outstrips  even  that  of  his  church,  and  he  is 
wanted  on  both  shores  of  this  vast  country  at  the  same 
time.  The  church  in  San  Francisco  calls  to  him  as  to 
the  one  man  who  can  restore  her  deserted  temple,  and 
after  long  delay  and  questioning,  balancing  between  the 
duty  there  and  the  duty  combined  with  inclination  here, 
he  decides  to  make  trial  of  the  Pacific  Coast. 

He  tenders  his  resignation  of  his  office  as  pastor  of 
this  church  in  January,  i860,  but  is  induced  to  with- 
draw it  at  the  solicitation  of  the  proprietors,  and  take 
a  release  from  his  duties  here  for  fifteen  months.  This 
enables  him  to  make  the  trial  in  California  without 
severing  the  ties  which  bound  him  so  strongly  to  Bos- 
ton. On  Sunday,  March  20,  i860,  he  delivered  those 
"  words   at   parting,"   which    are  among   the    treasured 


54 

memories    of   his   friends  worshipping   in  this    church, 
still  true  to  the  charge  he  left  them,  and  a  month  later 
he  sailed  away  never  to  return.     But  the  story  of  his 
glorious  service  in  California,  in  those  eventful  years  of 
the  great  rebellion,  through  all  the  varied  and  multiplied 
labors  of  minister,  lecturer,  and  active  citizen,  not  only 
justifies  his  mission  and  forbids  his  friends'  regret,  but 
fills  them  with  a  proud  thankfulness  that  their  loss  has 
been  to  others  so  great  a  gain.      It    does    not    come 
within  the  province  of  these  brief  memorials  of  Hollis 
Street  Church  to  follow  its  ministers,  beyond  its  portals, 
with  the  eager  and  particular  inquiry  of   fond  and  be- 
reaved friendship.     But  for  nearly  two  years  after  Mr. 
King   left    this    church,  he   still  held  his  place   as    its 
cherished  pastor.     His  work  in  California  at  this  time 
has    its    commemoration,    through    correspondence   and 
report,   in   the    records  of  this   church.     And    his    own 
words   assures   us   that  the  zeal  and  devotedness  with 
which  his  friends  in  Boston  sustained  this  society  were 
a  joy  and  support  to  him  amid  his  labors  on  the  Pacific 
Coast.      He  dwells   upon  their  fidelity  and  enterprise 
with  such  grateful  satisfaction  as  a  general  in  the  field 
might   experience  at  the  safe-keeping  of   his    army  in 
reserve.     And  he  had  reason  to  feel  proud  and  thank- 
ful for  these  people.     For  if   San    Francisco   was   his 
"  crown"  in  the  ministry,  Boston  was  his  "joy."     Writ- 
ing from  California  in  November,  1861,  that  conclusive 
letter  which   contained  his  resignation  of   his  pastoral 
relations  here,   he  says :    "  At  no  moment  of  my  resi- 


55 

dence  here  has  my  heart  wavered  in  its  allegiance  to 
New  England  and  Boston.  The  ties  have  strengthened, 
or  rather,  absence  and  distance  have  shown  me  how 
much  of  a  New  Englander  I  am.  .  .  .  Never  again  in 
life  can  I  expect  to  be  associated  in  parochial  fellow- 
ships so  honorable,  satisfactory,  and  precious." 

The  response  of  the  proprietors  is  in  the  same  tenor 
of  regretful  acquiescence  in  a  painful  necessity  and 
hearty  appreciation  of  the  noble  motives  which  act- 
uated their  minister.  The  separation  had  at  this  time, 
January,  1862,  become  a  necessity  with  them  as  well 
as  with  Mr.  King.  Prolonged  attachment  to  a  church 
in  the  absence  of  a  minister  is  not  a  general  virtue  in 
Protestant  Christendom.  And  the  faithful  and  devoted 
few  who  upheld  the  society  could  not  contend  much 
longer  with  the  disintegrating  effects  of  a  non-resident 
ministry.  But  they  fought  a  good  fight.  At  the  expi- 
ration of  the  first  year  of  Mr.  King's  absence  they  had 
made  a  record  of  Christian  activity  which  would  have 
done  credit  to  any  society.  It  won  the  jubilant  greeting 
and  praise  of  their  far-away  minister. 

Not  only  had  the  worship  of  the  church  been  main- 
tained with  its  usual  regularity,  and  its  teaching  con- 
ducted by  men  of  ability,  but  the  society  had  organized 
its  social  and  charitable  elements  with  unwonted  energy 
and  success.  Their  compulsory  self-reliance  had  proved 
the  sufficient  motive  for  self-help.  Undismayed  by 
their  loneliness  they  prepared  to  keep  the  fiftieth  anni- 
versary of    the   building  of    their   meeting-house,    with 


56 

becoming  services.  And  on  Jan.  31,  1861,  they  kept 
their  festival  of  memory  with  undaunted  hope.  At 
these  services,  Dr.  E.  S.  Gannett  and  Rev.  E.  E.  Hale 
reviewed  the  history  of  this  church,  and  Rev.  John 
Weiss  spoke  upon  the  New  England  pulpit.  Although 
separated  from  these  services  by  the  breadth  of  a 
continent,  Mr.  King's  participation  in  them  was  almost 
visibly  felt.  His  love,  his  longing,  his  sympathy,  his 
thankful  appreciation  of  the  people's  devotion  to  their 
church  and  his  church,  his  faith  in  the  truths  it  repre- 
sented, the  liberal  Christian  belief  it  professed,  the 
humanities  it  fostered,  the  spiritual  realities  it  revealed, — 
all  made  him  present  on  this  occasion,  in  power,  if  not 
in  body,  to  the  friends  who  loved  him  and  worked  in 
his  spirit. 

If  any  premonition  of  what  the  year  would  bring 
forth  attended  pastor  or  people  it  was  not  expressed  on 
either  side.  And  when  the  final  act  of  separation  in 
November,  1861,  was  done,  one,  at  least,  of  them,  had 
begun  to  feel  that  a  sadder  parting  was  not  far  away. 
But  the  sense  of  having  passed  the  meridian  of  his  life 
only  quickened  him  to  new  endeavors,  and  the  afternoon 
was  charged  with  such  a  glorious,  untiring,  and  success- 
ful warfare  for  liberty  and  truth  —  Liberty  his  Country, 
and  Truth  his  Church, —  that  it  seems  as  if  Joshua's  halt 
to  the  sun  had  been  repeated  by  this  conqueror  of  a  new 
land  of  promise,  and  with  vaster  issues.  On  Friday, 
March  4,  1864,  he  died.  While  this  church  endures,  it 
will  remember  him  and  bless  him. 


57 

On  the  first  Sunday  of  the  New  Year,  1876,  one  year 
ago,  I  was  preaching  in  San  Francisco,  California.  I 
remember  the  thread  of  the  discourse.  It  was  designed 
to  show  how  the  spirit  of  Christ  overcame  the  separat- 
ing effect  of  exceptional  endowments  or  accomplish- 
ments of  any  kind,  and  made  the  great  artist,  poet, 
orator,  preacher,  or  prophet  the  something  more  than  a 
prophet,  a  man.  At  the  close  of  the  sermon  the  com- 
munion was  administered,  and  Mr.  Stebbins  made  the 
adaptation,  from  which  I  had  only  refrained,  that  my 
hearers  might  do  it,  of  the  preaching  to  its  fitting  ex- 
ample, — Thomas  Starr  King.  It  was  an  occasion  of 
uncommon  interest  and  heartfelt  religious  joy  to  the 
two  men  who  had  succeeded  Mr.  King,  the  one  in 
Boston,  the  other  in  San  Francisco.  The  company  of 
the  faithful  people,  in  whose  mindful  souls  the  spirit  of 
King  still  lived  in  grateful  memory  was  with  us,  and  in 
the  communion  of  Jesus  we  were  brought  near  to  those 
who  had  died  in  him. 

Of  the  three  men  who  have  claimed  the  larger  share 
of  our  commemoration  this  morning  we  naturally  linger 
longest  over  Starr  King,  because  we  knew  him  best  and 
love  him  most.  His  early  life  wherein  filial  affection 
made  its  sacrifices  of  scholarly  opportunities,  yet  all  the 
while  maintained  a  high  ambition  and  intellectual  indus- 
try, is  well  known  to  you.  And  his  eleven  years  of  min- 
istry in  this  church,  1849  — 1860,  nave  left  a  heritage  of 
loving  remembrance  which  time  cannot  destroy,  and  a 
continuing  sense  of  bereavement  in  his  loss  which  con- 


58 


versation  does  not  heal.  How  can  I  coolly  dissect  the  en- 
dowment, the  character,  and  the  life-work  of  one  who  is 
still  remembered  so  clearly  and  loved  so  fondly  in  this 
church.  You  will  not  ask  it.  You  do  not  need  it.  No; 
let  us  rather  prison  speech,  lest  speech  should  rob  us  of 
regret. 

Holley,  Pierpont,  King ;  light,  heat,  and  electricity ; 
reason,  moral  earnestness,  the  enthusiasm  of  humanity. 
These  three !  Such  are  the  ministries  whose  successive 
and  companionable  powers  and  glories  have  poured 
forth  their  convincing,  convicting,  and  animating  elo- 
quence from  this  pulpit  in  the  times  that  are  gone. 
Those  were  fiery  times  that  tried  men's  souls  of  what 
substance  they  were.  To  my  brooding  mind  and  striv- 
ing imagination,  these  men  seem  to  me  like  "  the  three 
who  were  bound  in  their  coats,  their  hosen,  and  their 
hats,  and  other  garments,  and  cast  together  into  the 
furnace  seven  times  heated.  And  lo !  I  see  four  men, 
loose,  walking  in  the  midst  of  the  fire,  and  they  have  no 
hurt ;  and  the  form  of  the  fourth  is  like  the  Son  of 
God." 


MINISTERS  OF  HOLLIS  STREET  CHURCH, 


1732  to  1861. 


MATHER  BYLES. 
1732— 1776. 

Born  in  Boston,  March  26,  1706. 
Died  in  Boston,  July  5,  1788. 

See  Sprague's  " Annals  of  the   American   Pulpit,"  Vol.  I.;  Belknap's  Papers,  Col- 
lections of   Massachusetts  Historical  Society,  5th  Series. 


EBENEZER  WIGHT. 
1778—1788. 

Born  in  Dedham,  Sept.  24,  1750. 
Died  in  Dedham,  Sept.  25,  1821. 

See  "Memorial  of  the  Wight  Family,"  by  D.  P.Wight.    Massachusetts  Historical 
Society,  Boston. 


SAMUEL    WEST. 
1789— 1808. 

Born  in  Martha's  Vineyard,  Nov.  19,  1738,  O.  S 
Died  in  Boston,  April  10,  180S. 

See  Biographical  Memoir,  by  Rev.  Thomas  Thatcher,  and  Funeral  Discourse,  by  Dr. 
J.  Lathrop;  Autobiography  in  MSS.,  in  possession  of  John  J.  May. 


6o 

HORACE   HOLLEY. 

1809— 1818. 

Born  in  Salisbury,  Conn.,  Feb.  13,  1781. 
Died  at  sea,  July  31,  1827. 

See  Memoirs  of  Holley,  by  Charles  Caldwell    M.  D. 


JOHN    PIERPONT. 
1819— 1845. 

Born  in  Litchfield,  Conn.,  April  6,  1785. 
Died  in  Medford,  Aug.  27,  1866. 

See  Sermons,  and  pamphlets  in  Boston  Public  Library;  Poetical  works. 


DAVID    FOSDICK. 

1846 — 1847. 
Lives  at  Groton,  Mass. 


THOMAS  STARR  KING. 
1848— 1861. 

Born  in  New  York,  Dec.  16,  1824. 
Died  in  San  Francisco,  March  4,  1864. 

See  Tribute  to   Thomas   Starr   King,  by  Richard  Frothingham  ;  "The  White    Hills 
their  Legends,  Landscapes,  and  Poetry,"  and  printed  sermons. 


Original  Subscribers,  Feb.  n,  1730. 


Jonathan  Belcher,  Governor  of 
the  Province  of  Mass.  Bay. 
Silence  Allen. 
John  Bennett. 
John  Blake. 
Sutton  Byles. 
Alden  Bass. 
John  Clough. 
Ebenezer  Clough. 
Thomas  Clough. 
William  Cunningham. 
James  Day. 
Caleb  Edey. 
Hopestill  Foster. 


Nath'l  Fairfield. 
Henry  Gibbon. 
John  Goldsmith. 
Israel  How. 
Joseph  Hambleton. 
Isaac  Loring. 
Thomas  Milvin. 
William  Pain. 
Joseph  Payson, 
Benjamin  Russell. 
.Thomas  Trott. 
Thomas  Walker. 
John  Walker. 
Samuel  Wells. 


PROPRIETORS 

John  Allen. 
John  Alcock. 
Rebeckah  Amory. 
Josiah  Allen. 
Samuel  Andrews. 
James  A.  Allen. 
Thomas  Amory. 
William  Butler. 
Robert  Brown. 
Peter  Boylstone. 
Samuel  Brown. 
Samuel  Butler. 
Gawen  Brown. 
Thomas  Bayley. 


OF  PEWS  FROM  1731  TO  1810. 

Benjamin  Bass. 
Joseph  Bradford. 
Edward  Blake. 
Aaron  Blaney. 
Henry  Bass. 
John  Butterfield. 
Isaac  Bird. 
Moses  Belcher  Bass. 
John  Bosson. 
Josiah  Brown. 
David  Brewer. 
William  Bird. 
William  Brown. 
William  Blake. 


62 


William  Billings. 
Josiah  Brown. 
William  Bordman. 
Bela  Bullen. 
Thomas  Blake. 
William  Bartlett. 
William  P.  Blake. 
Jeremiah  Bridge. 
James  Barry. 
William  Bacon. 
Joseph  Blaney. 
Henry  Bass,  Jr. 
James  Blake. 
Nath'l  Bradlee. 
Benjamin  Bussey. 
James  Barry. 
Henry  Blaney. 
Aaron  Bean. 
Aaron  Baldwin. 
Lemuel  Blake. 
John  Clark. 
John  Cravath. 
Lemuel  Cravath. 
William  Clear. 
Benjamin  Church. 
David  Colson. 
James  Cunningham. 
Obadiah  Curtis. 
Joseph  Clark. 
Giles  Church. 
Benjamin  Cobb. 
Samuel  Cookson. 
Joshua  Clark. 
-  Nath'l  Curtis. 
Abijah  Crane. 
Nath'l  Cobbett. 
Elisha  Cowley. 
John  Cabot. 
John  Corbett. 
William  Cunningham. 


Gregory  Clark. 

David  Cobb. 

Sarah  Cheever. 

David  Cheever. 

Andrew  Cunningham. 

David  Child. 

Joseph  Cutler. 

Henry  B.  Curtis. 

Elisha  Copeland. 

William  Dummer,  Governor. 

Jonathan  Dwight. 

Joshua  Dodge. 

Charles  Dupee. 

Caleb  Davis. 

Amasa  Davis. 

Ebenezer  Dorr. 

Joseph  Dorr. 

Nath'l  iSavis. 

Joshua  Davis. 

Robert  Davis. 

William  Donnett. 

William  Dall. 

Elijah  Dix. 

John  Denton. 

Charles  Davis. 

Andrew  C.  Dorr. 

James  Dawson. 

John  Dorr. 

John  Eliot. 

Thomas  Edes. 

Joseph  Eliot. 

Thomas  Emmons. 

Otis  Everett. 

Jabez  Ellis. 

David  Ellis. 

Robert  Fairservice. 

Gustavus  Fellows. 

Joshua  Farrington. 

Benjamin  Fessenden. 

Alvan  Fosdick. 


63 


John  French. 
Oliver  Fisher. 
Oliver  Fuller. 
James  Freeman. 
Hopestill  Foster,  Jr. 
John  Foster. 
John  Gridley. 
Jeremiah  Gore. 
Stephen  Gore. 
William  Gough. 
Peter  Guyer. 
Henry  Geyer. 
William  Gooch. 
Jacob  Gould. 
Benjamin  Goddard. 
Nath'l  Gardner. 
John  Gibson. 
Abraham  Gibson. 
Jeremiah  Gore,  Jr. 
Stephen  Gore,  Jr. 
Amos  Green. 
Henry  Ch.  Guyer. ^ 
Peter  Harrot. 
Samuel  Holbrook. 
Sarah  Hobson. 
William  Henshaw. 
Richard  Hunnewell. 
Ebenezer  Hinckley. 
Samuel  Healey. 
John  Hopkins. 
Stephen  Harris. 
Samuel  Hastings. 
William  Hagar. 
Joel  Hagar. 
John  Hurd. 
John  Haskell. 
Barzillai  Holmes. 
Edward  C.  Howe. 
Zachariah  Johonnot. 
-  Johnson  Jackson. 


Peter  Johonnot. 
Joseph  Jackson. 
Jacob  Kuhn. 
Jonathan  Kelton. 
Josiah  Knapp. 
William  Lowder^ 
Robert  Lovering. 
Nath'l  Lovering. 
John  Lucas. 
Joseph  Lovering. 
Ebenezer  Lewis. 
Arthur  Langford. 
Robert  Lovering. 
James  Lamb. 
Thomas  Lamb. 
John  McLane. 
Ephraim  May. 
Aaron  May. 
John  May. 
Thomas  Mather. 
Moses  May. 
Diamond  Morton. 
Samuel  May. 
William  Marshall. 
Elijah  Marsh. 
John  McFadden. 
Ebenezer  May. 
Israel  Mead. 
Samuel  Marsh. 
Jonathan  Mason. 
Philip  Marett. 
Peter  Mackintosh. 
Solomon  Munroe. 
Phebe  Marsh. 
P  err  in  May. 
Edward  McLane. 
Nath'l  Meriam. 
Ephraim  Marsh. 
Benjamin  Neal. 
Eleazer  Nichols. 


64 


Henry  Newman. 

John  Osborn. 

William  Powell,  Governor,  1732 

Mary  Pollard. 

Moses  Pratt. 

Moses  Pierce. 

Eleazer  Price. 

*  John  Patten.  * 
John  Potter. 

Ebenezer  Perry. 

Nath'l  Phillips.  * 

William  Phillips. 

Joseph  Pierpont. 
- --  Remember  Preston. 
~John  Parker. 

Enoch  Pond. 
•  Nicholas  Pearce. 

Joseph  Pierce.  — 

John  Perry. 

Henry  Proale. 

Noah  Porter. 
•  Samuel  Phillips. 

John  Phillips. 

Nath'l  Richardson. 

Eleazer  Rice. 

Edward  Robinson. 

Samuel  Richards. 

Samuel  Ruggles. 

*  John  Roulstone. 

Mark  Richards.  *- 

-»  Paul  D.  Richards. 
Giles  Richards. 
George  Rex. 
Cornelius  Rex. 
Robert  Robinson. 
Joseph  Richards.  ""' 

Robert  Ruggles. 
Elizabeth  Simpson. 
John  Simpson. 
Abigail  Stacey. 


>e  m 


Joseph  Scott. 
William  Simpson. 
Nath'l  Simpson. 
John  Salmon. 
Nath'l  Sheppard. 
Samuel  Swift. 
Thomas  Spear. 
Ebenezer  Seaver. 
Nath'l  Smith. 
Thomas  S  to  well. 
Samuel  Sprague. 
Nath'l  Sparhawk. 
Joseph  Sprague. 
Ephraim  S eagre. 
William  Stevens. 
Henry  Stevens. 
John  Sprague. 
Ephraim  Thayer. 
John  Turner. 
Gideon  Thayer. 
Samuel  Trott. 
Peter  Trott. 
George  Trott. 
Edward  Tuckerman. 
Josiah  Torrey. 
Obadiah  Thayer. 
Timothy  Tileston. 
Samuel  Torrey. 
David  Trask. 
Elisha  Ticknor. 
Benjamin  Thomas. 
Benjamin  Thompson. 
Samuel  Topliff. 
Isaac  Vose. 
Joshua  Vose. 

T Wheeler. 

William  Winter. 
Abigail  Whitton. 
Joseph  Woods. 
Benjamin  Wheeler. 


65 


William  Wheeler. 
*«)  David  Wheeler. 

Sanderson  West. 

Samuel  Wheat. 
""Stephen  Wales. 
■    Josiah  Wheeler. 

Nath'l  Wheeler. 

Isaac  White. 

Joshua  Witherle. 
r-  Thomas  Wheeler. 

Nath'l  Wales. 
*  Robert  Wier,  Jr. 

Arnold  Welles. 

William  Wyman. 


Amos  Whitney. 
Ezra  Whitney. 
Joseph  Whipple. 
Edward  Weld. 
Jesse  B.  Willcox. 
John  Weare. 
Jacob  Whitney. 
Thomas  Williams. 
John  D.  Williams. 
Edmund  Weld. 
Benjamin  West. 
Hannah  Whitmarsh. 
William  S.  White. 
Samuel  Wheeler. 


PROPRIETORS  OF  PEWS  IN  NEW  MEETING-HOUSE. 


I8ll. 

Samuel  Andrews. 
James  A.  Allen. 

—  Aaron  Bean. 

-  Asa  Bullard. 
Benj.  Bass,  Jr. 
Henry  Bass. 
Henry  Bass,  Jr. 
Nath'l  Bradlee. 
Nath'l  Bradlee,  Jr. 
William  Brown. 
William  Brown,  Jr. 
Benj.  Bussey. 
Henry  Blaney,. 
Edward  Blake. 
James  Barry. 
Elisha  Brigham. 
Elias  Beers. 
Jabez  Bullard. 
Philip  Bonner. 
Joseph  Bancroft. 
Aaron  Baldwin. 
Thomas  Blake. 


Zebedee  Cook,  Jr. 
Elias  Cobb. 
Lucy  Cobb. 
Abijah  Crane. 
Elisha  Copeland. 
Henry  B.  Curtis. 
Joshua  Davis. 
Charles  Davis. 
Amasa  Davis. 
William  Dall. 
James  Dall. 
James  Dawson. 
Andrew  C.  Dorr. 
Jabez  Ellis. 
Luther  Ellis. 
Otis  Everett. 
Winsor  Fay. 
John  French. 
James  Freeman. 
Oliver  Fisher. 
Jacob  Guild. 
Abraham  Gibson. 
Charles  Guild. 


66 


Jeremiah  Gore,  Jr. 

Stephen  Gore,  Jr. 

Amos  Greene. 

John  Gibson. 

Simon  Hastings. 

Benjamin  Howland. 
^-Thomas  Holland. 

Calvin  Howe. 

John  Haskell. 

Barzillai  Homes. 

Johnson  Jackson. 

William  Jackson. 
^-  Edward  Johnson. 
-     Josiah  Knapp. 
.    William  Lovering,  Jr. 

Joseph  Lovering. 

Arthur  Langford. 

Isaac  Mansfield. 

Peter  Mackintosh. 

Ephraim  Marsh. 

Jesse  Mayo. 

Perrin  May. 

Samuel  May. 

Amasa  Murdock. 

Eleazer  Nichols. 

Spencer  Nolan. 

Henry  Newman. 

Elisha  Penniman. 

John  Perry. 

Jesse  Putnam. 

Lemuel  Packard. 

John  L.  Phillips. 

Samuel  Phillips. 

John  Parker. 

Paul  D.  Richards. 

Joseph  Richards. 

Luke  Richardson. 

Joseph  Saunders. 

Ebenezer  Seaver. 

John  Smith. 


Mrs.  Sheppard. 
Philemon  Stacy. 
William  Spear. 
Timothy  Tileston. 
John  Tyler. 
Andrew  C.  Trott. 
Jonathan  Trott. 
Ephraim  Thayer. 
Edward  Tuckerman. 
Josiah  Vose. 
Isaac  Vose. 
Elisha  Vose. 
Daniel  Weld. 
Benjamin  West. 
Nath'l  Wales. 
John  D.  Williams. 
Thomas  Williams. 
Joseph  Willett. 
William  S.  White. 
Josiah  Wheeler. 
Hannah  Whitmarsh. 
Samuel  Woods. 
William  Wyman. 

1812. 

Joseph  Balch. 
Robert  Elwell. 
John  Pickens,  Jr. 
Stephen  Thayer. 
Samuel  S.  Wheeler. 

I8l6. 
Oliver  Clark. 

1819. 

Andrew  Aitchison. 
Thomas  Brewer. 

1820. 

Charles  Bemis. 
Richards  Child. 


67 


David  Dudley. 
Henry  K.  Hancock. 
Josiah  Wheeler  Homes. 
Ephraim  Harrington. 
Josiah  Loring. 
Benjamin  M.  Nevers. 
Benjamin  Stevens. 
Zeal  Skidmore. 
John  Thompson. 

I82I. 
George  Gay. 
John  Fox. 
Thomas  Rundle. 

1823. 

Joshua  Crane. 
Samuel  H.  Hewes,  Jr. 
Theodore  Wright. 

1824. 

Cyrus  Alger. 
Ruel  Baker. 
Nahum  Cutler. 
Lewis  Dupee. 
Peleg  Mann. 

1827. 

Henry  Adams. 
Abraham  Bird. 
Henry  Baldwin. 
James  Boyd. 
William  W.  Clapp. 
Stephen  Child. 
Isaac  Cutler. 
Nathan  Cutler. 
Moses  Everett. 
Stephen  Fairbanks. 
Jabez  Fisher. 
Thatcher  Goddard. 
Charles  Guild. 


«*" 


Joshua  Holden. 
Joseph  Hay. 
Eben  T.  Inglesby. 
Benjamin  Leeds. 
George  W.  Lord. 
Ephraim  Marsh. 
Oliver  Mills,  Jr. 
William  Phillips. 
Isaac  Parker. 
John  Pickens,  Jr. 
Joseph  E.  Smith. 
Henry  Smith. 
Jonathan  P.  Stearns. 
Josiah  Stedman. 
Samuel  Sprague. 
James  Spear. 
Samuel  Shepherd. 
I.  P.  Townsend. 
David  Townsend. 
Thomas  B.  Wales. 
Thomas  Whitmarsh. 
Warren  White. 
Charles  White. 
Moses  Williams. 

1829  to  1840. 

Henry  Atkins. 
Jonathan  Bowditch,  Jr. 
Calvin  W.  Clark. 
William  Coffin. 
Benjamin  D.  Emerson. 
George  Foiling,  Jr. 
Abraham  Howard. 
Edmund  Jackson. 
Stephen  W.  Jackson. 
Caleb  G.  Loring. 
Samuel  Lynes. 
Jonathan  Minot. 
Samuel  Payson. 
John  Redman. 


68 


A.  W.  Thaxter,  Jr. 
Luther  Thayer,  Jr. 
Nathan  Upham. 
Nathan  Viles. 
Addison  Ware. 

1845. 

Charles  H.  Ayling. 
Nath'l  Brewer. 
Stephen  G.  Bass. 
Jabez  Bullard. 
Charles  W.  Clapp. 
Henry  Carter. 
Barney  Cory. 
Gilman  Davis. 
Nath'l  B.  Doggett. 
Luther  Ellis. 
Thomas  Emmons. 
Henry  H.  Fuller. 
William  C.  Fay. 
A.  D.  Gamage. 
Daniel  Goodnow. 
William  A.  Hyde. 
William  F.  Haynes. 
Charles  E.  Loud. 
Ellis  G.  Loring. 
George  May. 
John  J.  May. 
William  C.  Martin. 
G.  W.  F.  Mellen. 
Charles  D.  Merriam. 
William  H.  Odiorne. 
Marshall  S.  Perry. 
Thomas  Pollard. 
Jonathan  Patten. 
Edward  Page. 
Henry  Prescott. 
Payson  Perrin. 
George  Revere. 
John  H.  Rice. 


Henry  Robins. 
John  H.  Smith. 
Sherlock  Spooner. 
N.  A.  Thompson. 
Benjamin  L.  Tileston. 
Addison  Ware. 
John  D.  Weld. 
Moses  W.  Weld. 
David  W.  Williams. 
G.  Foster  Williams. 
G.  B.  Wheeler. 

1848. 

Timothy  Bigelow. 
Elizabeth  Child. 
Lemuel  A.  Cooledge. 
G.  Henry  Lodge. 

1853. 

George  A.  Allen. 
William  H.  Brown. 
Abel  Ball. 
Nath'l  J.  Bradlee. 
O.  G.  Chapman. 
David  Dyer. 
Caleb  Eddy. 
Edward  H.  Eldredge. 
Charles  B.  Fessenden. 
G.  H.  Folger. 
Joseph  Greeley. 
B.  H.  Greene. 
B.  W.  Gilbert. 
Nath'l  Harris. 
T.  R.  Holland. 
G.  H.  Hunnewell. 
John  Hatchman. 
John  H.  Hollis. 
Daniel  N.  Haskell. 
Thomas  H.  Hickey. 
H.  A.  Kendall. 


69 


C.  F.  Lougee. 
Joseph  Lewis: 
Charles  A.  Locke. 
Charles  S.  Lynch. 
C.  F.  Mayo. 
William  C.  Morey. 
George  H.  Preston. 
George  Paul. 
Joshua  P.  Preston. 
Charles  T.  Plympton. 
Edward  T.  Russell,  Jr. 
Thomas  W.  Robinson. 
W.  J.  Slade. 
Charles  Wells. 
J.  D.  W.  Williams. 
George  W.  Wyer. 

1854. 

Warren  Sawyer. 
Ezekiel  Merrill. 
C.  H.  F.  Moring. 
David  Leavitt. 
Charles  S.  Parker. 
Porter  Hartwell. 

1855. 

Milton  Fuller. 
Ira  B.  Carlisle. 
Jonathan  Preston. 
J.  W.  Ridgway. 
Otis  Kimball. 
John  Center. 
John  Worster. 
J.  H.  Cheney. 
Andrew  G.  Greeley. 
William  Bacon. 
Seth  E.  Brown. 
Hayward  P.  Cushing. 
Joseph  Hurd. 
Henry  A.  Ayling. 


E.  Baker  Welch. 
G.  H.  Cutter. 
C.  C.  Kurtz. 
Sidney  A.  Stetson. 
E.  B.  Sampson. 
Frederick  Cabot. 
B.  G.  Samson. 
Solomon  J.  Gordon. 
W.  G.  Cutter. 

B.  T.  Manson. 
Lucius  Seaverns. 
Sidney  Fisher. 

J.  M.  Bradbury. 
A.  H.  Poor. 
J.  T.  Vose. 
Ivory  Bean. 
Phineas  S.  Fiske. 
John  H.  Everett. 
George  H.  Houghton. 
Maria  S.  Wood. 

1856. 

Spencer  W.  Richardson. 
Lyman  Tucker. 

C.  S.  Hunt. 
Asa  F.  Cochran. 

John  Coffin  Jones  Brown. 
Charles  Canterbury. 
Thomas  Bancroft. 
William  S.  Thatcher. 
James  F.  Athearn. 

1857. 

P.  Adams  Ames. 
Edward  S.  Taylor. 
Elisha  Atkins. 
John  Mason. 
John  M.  Robbins. 
Charles  E.  Bosworth. 


7o 


' 


1858. 

William  F.  Freeman. 
Francis  S.  Russell. 
James  P.  Gordon. 
Thomas  J.  Welch. 

1859. 

Stephen  Augustus  Dix. 
Cornelius  Hersey. 

i860. 

Jonathan  Hammond. 
Robert  W.  Lord. 

1 86 1  to  1874. 

E.  Livermore. 
Lyman  E.  Sibley. 
James  Beck. 
Freeman  Cobb. 
Benjamin  D.  Osgood. 
Horace  H.  Lewis. 
Daniel  F.  Long. 
John  Capen. 
James  B.  Case. 
John  Stetson. 
Gilbert  Clark. 


Freeman  J.  Doe. 
C.  A.  L.  Pomeroy. 
Edwin  Read. 
Walter  B.  Hewins. 
Edward  Russell. 
Otis  Everett  Weld. 
James  A.  Dupee. 
Henry  Nash. 
Samuel  Hale. 
M.  S.  Stockwell. 
Benjamin  W.  Taggard. 
Ann  Bradlee. 
Mrs.  Arria  Cotton. 
Dudley  R.  Child. 
Benjamin  Hammond. 
Mrs.  Zabiah  May  Smith. 
Sarah  H.  Mann. 
Thomas  Popkin. 
Almond  F.  Nason. 
Henry  Revere. 
Henry  T.  Bonney. 
George  F.  Mann. 
Henry  H.  Sprague. 
John  Cummings. 
Francis  Revere. 
Franklin  Brown. 
Abraham  Firth. 


* 


5 


k 


DATE  DUE 

Vf\V 

if  HflG 

MAT 

i  v1    t/v'* 

UNIVERSITY  PRODUCTS,  INC.    #859-5503 


■  •'  I  ■»i-ULJUiix2ja 

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3  9031   01586886  2 


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